Rather than save the PC market, Windows 10 – or, more to the point, its free availability – has added to the factors driving its decline, judging from conclusions drawn by research firm IDC.
The firm now expects, based on its Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, that global PC shipments will see a year-over-year decline of 7.3% in 2016. The situation should thereafter improve, but only slowly; “progressively smaller declines” are forecast for 2017, with “stable volume” not arriving until 2018.
The market shrunk by 12.5% in 2016’s first quarter, even worse than IDC’s forecast of 11.3% – and the company has attributed the continuing fall of shipments to factors including “weak currencies, depressed commodity prices, political uncertainty, and delayed projects”.
IDC has further pointed out that PC owners who would have typically opted to buy a new PC might have instead decided to delay that purchase in favor of making use of a free update to Windows 10.
Loren Loverde, IDC’s vice president, Worldwide Tracker Forecasting and PC research, has deplored that, “for now, improvement continues to mean slower declines.” It remains to be seen whether such emerging technologies as biometric recognition and virtual reality could return the segment to growth.
