Gartner Predicts Better PC Shipments by the End of 2009

The PC industry has been suffering from an on-going decrease in market demand, a trend that has affected all market segments. It now appears that, after more than twelve months of gloomy forecasts, the PC market is expected to see better results at the end of this year, according to a recent report by market research firm Gartner. The company predicts that the fourth quarter of this year will see the PC industry record a better-than-expected shipment, despite a small decline from last year's results.

“PC unit growth was stronger than we expected in all markets but Eastern Europe in the first quarter of 2009. In particular, consumer shipments were much stronger than we anticipated,” George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, said. “However, professional shipments continued to struggle, and we think much of the growth in consumer units was due to vendors and the channel restocking inventories rather than an upsurge in demand. We expect units to contract roughly 10 percent year over year in both second and third quarter 2009 before they post positive growth in the fourth quarter.”

According to Gartner, the worldwide PC market will see shipments of 274 million units in 2009, with a six-percent decline from the 2008 shipment of 292 million units. This is somewhat of a positive report, given Gartner's previous forecast, according to which the market would record a decline of 9.2 percent. However, despite the less gloomy forecast, it's still early to say when the PC market would stabilize.

Gartner also added that the release of Microsoft's Windows 7 in October would modestly affect the PC market, although the next-generation operating system had been welcomed with enthusiasm.

“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,” Mr Shiffler added. “Unless Microsoft mounts a major marketing campaign in support of Windows 7, we think consumers will simply adopt the new operating system (OS) 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.”