14 DAY TRIAL // Many expected Windows 10 to help increase sales of new PCs after its launch, but early figures show that this collapsing industry is far from recovery and estimates point to even slower performance in the next months.
Analyst firm IDC expects worldwide PC shipments to drop by 10 percent in the fourth quarter of the year, pushing the decline for 2015 to 10.3 percent year-on-year, with the performance said to stabilize by the end of 2016 and even grow slightly towards the last few months.
Windows 10 has made no difference
As for Windows 10 and its impact on PC sales, IDC says that the new operating system has failed to make a difference mostly because people have decided to hold back from purchasing a new computer as they could upgrade the existing one to the new operating system free of charge.
"The free upgrade to Windows 10 enables some users to postpone an upgrade a little, but not indefinitely. Some consumers will use a free OS upgrade to delay a new PC purchase and test the transition to Windows 10,” explains Loren Loverde, Vice President, Worldwide Tracker Forecasting and PC research.
“However, the experience of those customers may serve to highlight what they are missing by stretching the life of an older PC, and we expect they will ultimately purchase a new device. As detachable systems become more compelling (including attractive new Wintel designs), some volume will go to detachable tablets rather than traditional PC form factors, which will cut into the PC growth rate, but still supports the PC vendors and ecosystem.”
Windows 10 is expected to have a bigger impact once enterprises start the migration, which is likely to happen in early 2016. Microsoft itself has a goal of bringing Windows 10 on 1 billion devices, but as compared to OEMs that need to sell new PCs, the software giant is more interested in bringing people on the new OS version and only then convince them to buy new PCs.