Gartner: PC sales show signs of revival
Published: 26 Jun 2009 16:01 BST
After more than a year of doom-and-gloom PC market forecasts, things are looking up, according to a revised forecast from Gartner.
The market research firm predicted on Thursday that the fourth quarter of this year will bring the beginning of a rebound that will gain momentum next year. With a stronger fourth quarter, the industry will be on pace to ship 274m PCs worldwide this year.
While that's still a 6 percent drop from last year's total shipments of 292m units, it's not as bad as once expected. Earlier this year, Gartner was predicting a 9.2 percent decline for the year.
Gartner said that next year's shipments will swing into positive territory, and it forecast growth of 10.3 percent. But the company's analysts said that it is too soon to assume that the worst is over. People are still delaying purchases while the overall economic outlook remains uncertain, they said.
Customers will begin buying again — but not until later this year — and sales will pick up throughout 2010 and 2011, according to Gartner Research Director George Shiffler. He also cautioned that when Windows 7 first becomes widely available, it won't spur as many new sales as may be expected.
"Although the buzz surrounding Windows 7 has generally been quite positive, we don't expect the market to significantly deviate from its normal seasonal trends in reaction to its release," Shiffler said in a statement. "Unless Microsoft mounts a major marketing campaign in support of Windows 7, we think consumers will simply adopt the new operating system as they would normally buy new PCs and/or replace old ones. As for professional users, we still expect them to put off adopting the new OS for at least a year until they have fully tested their applications against it."
Credit: Gartner: PC sales to pick up by end of the year from CNET News
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