IDC reports a drop of 11.5 percent in Q1 2016

Apr 12, 2016 09:11 GMT  ·  By

Shipments of new PCs continue to decline, and new data provided by IDC for the first quarter of 2016 reveals that the year-on-year drop has now reached 11.5 percent.

The original forecast estimated a decrease of 11.3 percent, so the recorded sales are in line with expectations, but this doesn’t mean that there’s any reason to celebrate. PC sales keep going down, and nothing seems to stop them from doing so. Not even Windows 10, that is.

According to IDC, PC shipments fell 5.8 percent in the United States during the period and recorded a double-digit decline in Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with Windows 10 said to fail to become a catalyst for the long-awaited recovery.

“Windows 10 had a limited impact on PC renewals as its rapid adoption came mostly from free software upgrades. The new products launched with Windows 10 and Skylake architecture supported sales growth but could not reverse the overall negative trend,” IDC says.

Drops recorded by OEMs

Pretty much all large vendors in the PC industry experienced declines in new PC shipments in Q1 2016 as compared to the same period of the previous year. Lenovo, for instance, dropped 8.5 percent to 12.1 million sold units while HP’s shipments fell 10.8 percent to 11.6 million.

Dell also lost 2 percent while Apple was very close with a drop of 2.1 percent and 4.4 million sold units during the quarter.

IDC estimates slightly better performance in the remainder of the year, especially because more enterprises are expected to complete their Windows 10 pilot programs and begin the transition to the new operating system, thus purchasing new hardware as well.

“IDC still projects total business IT spending to grow compared to 2015, and as we head toward the end of 2016 things should start picking up in terms of Windows 10 pilots turning into actual PC purchases,” Jay Chou, Research Manager, IDC Worldwide PC Tracker, said.

Analyst firm Gartner has also reported an important decline in new PC sales, revealing that Windows 10 has failed to become a good reason to purchase new hardware.