Better accounting is needed
Here we go again, both Gartner and International Data Corporation (IDC) released some ugly numbers about how the PC market fared in the final quarter of 2015, along with some doomsday commentary. But whats not reflected by either market research firm is the number of detachable 2-in-1 PC shipments.
Lets start with IDCs accounting and analysis because its the more dire of the two. According to IDC, worldwide PC shipments reached 71.9 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a number that represents a 10.6 percent year-on-year decline. IDC goes on to say that even though the market performed as expected with conservative estimates, 2015 ended up being the first year since 2008 that PC shipments fell below 300 million units with the largest year-on-year decline in history.
Well, we might as well declare the PC market dead, right? Not so fast. First, one thing I like to remind people when these reports come out is that hundreds of millions of PCs are still being introduced into the market every year. For 2015, IDC noted over 276.2 million PC shipments.
Secondly, these numbers dont take into account detachable PC shipments. To IDCs credit, it points this out, though it comes several paragraphs after talking about how 2015 was pretty much crap for PCs
Adding detachable PCs, which IDC says "are growing quickly from a small base," would add 6 percentage points to the fourth quarter and 3 percentage points for the full year, bringing the year-on-year decline to 7.5 percent.
"The impact for 2016 will be larger as detachable tablet volume grows, boosting earlier forecasts of PC growth in 2016 from -3.1 percent to growth of 1 to 2 percent," IDC adds.
Gartner paints a similar picture with the same general brush strokes, only with less dramatic commentary. According to Gartner, PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2015 totaled 75.7 million units, a decline of 8.3 percent compared to the same quarter a year prior. And the total number of shipments for the entire year exceeded 288.7 million units.
"The fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner. "Holiday sales did not boost the overall PC shipments, hinting at changes to consumers’ PC purchase behavior. On the business side, Windows 10 generally received positive reviews, but as expected, Windows 10 migration was minor in the fourth quarter as many organizations were just starting their testing period."
Like IDC, Gartner doesnt factor in detachable 2-in-1 PCs, or at least thats my understanding. Instead, it counts "desk-based PCs, notebook PCs, and ultramobile premiums," and in doing so, it arrives at a similar number of PCs and conclusion as IDC.
Heres the thing, the detachble PCs these firms are ignoring are the very ones that Microsoft is trying so hard to promote. The market is evolving and now includes fancy systems like the Surface Pro line and the more recent Surface Book, along with similar devices from Microsofts hardware partners, but research firms havent evolved with it.
As a result, the reported declines are inflated at best, or just plain wrong. Im not saying its easy to know where to draw the line -- some would go so far as to argue that those things we call smartphones should be classified as PCs -- but I think at minimum, research firms should take into consideration 2-in-1 devices that run Windows or Linux.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section!
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