Windows 9 Very Unlikely to Save the Collapsing PC Market, IDC Says

Microsoft is expected to launch a brand new Windows version, most likely called Windows 9, sometime next year, but even though the software giant will continue development of new OS builds, the PC market is very unlikely to recover.

That’s what a forecast made by IDC claims, as the research firm says that the PC market will continue its decline in the next years despite efforts made by software and hardware companies.

The desktop market is expected to drop from 136.7 million shipped units in 2013 to 129.1 million units this year, before eventually declining to 119.2 million units in 2018. The portal PC industry will fall, as well, from 178.4 million last year to 166.8 million in 2014 and 172.5 million in 2018.

Total PC shipments would obviously record a significant drop as well, IDC says, from 315.1 million units in 2013 to no less than 291.7 million units in 2018.

“Emerging markets used to be a core driver of the PC market, as rising penetration among large populations boosted overall growth,” said Loren Loverde, vice president, Worldwide PC Trackers.

“At the moment, however, we're seeing emerging regions more affected by a weak economic environment as well as significant shifts in technology buying priorities. We do expect these regions to recover in the medium term and perform better than mature regions, but growth is expected to stabilize near zero percent, rather than driving increasing volumes as we saw in the past.”

Just like every other Windows version, Windows 9 is expected to boost PC sales, as more consumers would make the move to the new release and purchase new PCs and devices capable of running it flawlessly.

The PC market decline will continue through 2018, IDC says in a new report

Windows 8 adoption remains low more than one year after launch, so Microsoft is working to tweak future Windows releases in a way that they would better tackle the PC market and bring users tools to boost productivity not only on a touch-capable device, but also with the traditional mouse and keyboard configuration.

Windows 9, for example, is expected to bring back the traditional Start Menu and thus make the platform look and work better for desktop users, especially for those who don’t want to rely on the new Modern UI introduced with Windows 8.