Gartner Losing Hope in PC Market Growth for 2011-2012

Ultrabooks may be doing fine, but the overall PC industry doesn't appear to have such a pleasant picture painted ahead of it, at least according to a certain market analyst firm.

The PC market is the central pillar of the worldwide consumer IT industry and has been so ever since the first PC was first invented.

Then again, only thirty years have passed since the making of the first IBM PC, and already the segment is declining, in some people's view at least.

Ultrabooks were invented as a means to revamp the notebook and, by extension, the PC industry in the wake of the rapid tablet success.

Nonetheless, even with analysts predicting happy times ahead for this new device type, the overall PC segment is not, in fact, expected to do so well.

Gartner is the research and advisory firm that has most recently spoken on the matter, naming the slowdown in the US and especially Western Europe as the main cause for this.

The company even revised its forecasts for the PC market as far as this year (2011) and 2012 are concerned.

352 million PCs are set to be shipped by year's end (3.8% more than 2010, instead of 9.3% as previously thought). As for 2012, the figure is of 404 million (10.9% over 2011 instead of the 12.8% that was previously outlined).

"Western Europe is not only struggling through excess PC inventory, but economic upheaval as well," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

"U.S. consumer PC shipments were much weaker than expected in the second quarter, and indications are that back-to-school PC sales are disappointing. An increasing pessimistic economic outlook is causing both consumer and business sentiment to deteriorate in both regions. We're expecting consumer spending to tighten in response. Business spending will also tighten, but less than the consumer space."