Personal Computer sales are seeing a dip year on year, which is resulting in dampening Microsoft efforts to make Windows 10 the most widespread OS across all platforms and devices.
Even though Microsoft voiced 270 million users running Windows 10 including desktops, notebooks, tablets, 2-in-1s, smartphones, Xbox Ones, and others at its Build Conference 2016, the number don’t necessarily mean that Microsoft is in total grabbing a larger share of a growing market.
As reported by Gartner, PC Growth has taken a big hit with sales down to less than 65 million units shipping worldwide. This accounts to 9.6% dip in growth compared to sales same time last year.
“The deterioration of local currencies against the U.S. dollar continued to play a major role in PC shipment declines. Our early results also show there was an inventory buildup from holiday sales in the fourth quarter of 2015,” said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.
“All major regions showed year-over-year shipment declines, with Latin America showing the steepest drop, where PC shipments declined 32.4 percent. The Latin American PC market was intensely impacted by Brazil, where the problematic economy and political instability adversely affected the market, Ms. Kitagawa said. “The ongoing decline in U.S. PC shipments showed that the installed base is still shrinking, a factor that played across developed economies. Low oil prices drove economic contraction in Latin America and Russia, changing them from drivers of growth to market laggards.”
All vendor have noted a dip in sales in the US excluding Dell and Lenovo with a growth of 3% and 14.6% respectively. This includes Apple too. Microsoft Surface Pro, on the other hand, is showing good signs with positive numbers compared to more traditional desktop and notebook segments.
“Vendors that had a strong consumer focus struggled to increase sell in shipments,” Ms. Kitagawa said. “There was no particular motivation for U.S. consumers to purchase PCs in the first quarter of 2016. There have been increased sales of two-in-one PCs, but not enough to offset the decline in desktop and traditional notebook sales.”
The signs are more worrying for Microsoft as the company’s mobile operating system hasn’t gained enough strength to counter the dipping PC sales. Still, Microsoft can hope to achieve the 1 Billion landmark with the quarter of a way there in less than a year.