U.S. PC Market Wraps Up Worst Year Since 2001

People are also building their own desktops more and more now (or getting a friend to build it for them) - Could be interesting to compare these results to those of CPU+motherboards etc etc and see what sort of sales they are pulling in.

Looks like the data is for off the shelf brands rather than DIY.

I would be really curious to see how sales of individual parts have changed over the years. Can't say I'm too surprised by this news, I know a lot of people who are jumping on the tablet bandwagon.

We posted at the same time. Last figures I saw indicate DIY pc's are a very very tiny drop in a great big bucket.

Smartphones and Tablets killed the PC star.

There is no innovation to drive PC sales. I have had the same pc for 5 years now, and see no need to upgrade any time soon. The are no killer-apps to drive sales like we had in the 90's.

since the majority of people are to stupid to do more than surf the web and tweet, yea it would make sense that phones and tablets would sell more. Plus you can't spit in any direction without hitting a news commentator talking about this tablet or that smartphone. I'm tired of hearing about both of them and have no desire to own either. The only reason my phone is smart is because you can't hardly buy one that isn't anymore. There is no smartphone or tablet that can do what a real computer can do but dumb people don't realize that.

PC hardware is now so powerful that, except for the tiny fraction of PC users who are hardcore gamers or independent design or video mavens, there is no rational need to upgrade a whole PC every year any more; even the gamers can often be satisfied with a GPU (and maybe PSU) upgrade. Even less expensive mobos now include solid caps and other features for longevity.

Good: Won't have to keep upgrading the PC as often.

Bad: The technological leap for PC will be very slow or expensive because of low demand.

The majority of people just want to surf the web and watch Youtube. How much PC do they [i]really[i]need for that if they have one that is already 2-4 years old, maybe even longer? They have no reason to upgrade to today's or tomorrow's PC to do that. All they need is broadband for a decent experience.

But only in the USA apparently, and seeing as Smartphones and Tablets are also sold to the other 95% of the worlds population and PC growth was up there as well, I would say the problem lies with the USA, not with the PC industry.

Mean while Apple posts best ever. Don't hate me, just stating.

http://gigaom.com/apple/macs-still [...] stagnates/

Don't flame me, I have purchased both a Mac and Wintel PC this year. Have you?

I built maybe 10 PCs for friends and family this year, I bet those weren't counted and neither were the other many, many, many DIY PCs built last year.

I can't seem to find the stats for Apple Mac sales worldwide, as the story was refering to US sales and global sales being down and up respectively, does Mac have US sales versus global sales being up and down respectively?
Any links you can post to show would be nice so we can get the whole story.

I thought it was CRAP games and shovelware, free-2-play, world of warcraft clones tht killed the PC star.

Too "stupid"? Not everyone's line of work involves digital content creation. Being able to consume media is all some people need.

What many people do not understand is that 4+ year old architecture is enough for most people. A C2D or AMD dual core scales well enough for most computer users that they do not feel the need to upgrade. Furthermore the minimal cost to upgrade memory allows people to keep their HPs Dells or whatever to last much longer.

I doubt DIY projects were up this year enough to truly affect the numbers by more than 1%.

I would point the change more towards the shift toward tablets for consumers, and a decision to keep older PCs in businesses.
At work (University) we typically buy a whole new set of PCs every 3 years to ensure PCs are always on warranty. Due to rather large budget cuts, we have opted not to buy new PCs even though our PCs have been off of warranty for more than 2 years now.

As for the increase in Apple computers, they are simply doing well right now. They are the trending brand. I congratulate them and hope they continue to grow. Doesn't matter if you think Apple is the root of all evil or not; the way I see it, the extra competition from Apple will do nothing but help the consumer PC industry try to scramble and catch back up.

If you aren't gaming, you are doing it wrong ;p

That was bound to happen.
There is a point where the PC gets fast enough to handle everything the 'average' user needs.
That means he/she will stop upgrading and only replacing if broken.

So unless we find something else to do for our computers that current technology can not handle this will be a continuing trend in the domestic sales numbers.

This is for a few reasons:
1) economy, people are upgrading necessities, or adding 'cheap' accessories, while keeping working products around longer.
2) Win7. Why buy a new PC when you can just upgrade Vista to Win7 and get more power from the computer? We are going to see the same problem with Win8. It runs on slow hardware better than older OS's (provided you have enough Ram... which is cheap).
3) Cheap upgrades. Ram, CPUs, Cases and Monitors are all relitively cheap as they have lowered their prices to meet the requirements of a slower economy. The only exception are HDDs, but many (myself included) are switching to small SSDs when our HDDs fail (so long as they meet our space requirements)
4) Tablets and Smartphones. While I still insist that they do not replace the use of a PC or Laptop, they are a reason to not get a new one. So long as your main computer is faster than the tablet or smartphone then why bother upgrading? With quad core processors, Win8, Office for ARM, and other changes coming this year I think we will see Tablets replacing PCs, but not yet.
5) perhaps most important, system requirements. If all you are doing is browsing the web and checking e-mail, and editing the occasional document then you dont need anything more than a late gen Pentium 4 or Pentium D, and a Core2Duo with a decent Ram and HDD/SSD loadout is about as fast as you can get for web browsing and similar activities. Even video games seem stuck; Froever tied to game consoles that refuse to change. It is only the content creation software that needs more power, and for the most part a mid-grade i5 system is more than enough, and the new i5's and i7s are largely overkill. So until utility costs rise through the roof prompting the use of newer more efficient computers (my new i7 rig with a GTX 570 takes less power in daily use than my old C2Duo rig paired with a 9800GT), or the natural attrition of dying hardware kicks in then we will likely see this trend of lowered computer sales continue. But I still think most households will have at least 1 PC for the next 5-10 years, which will later convert into a home server for a multitude of mobile (smartphones, MIDs, laptops, etc) and fixed use devices (refridgerators, TVs, HTPCs etc.)

I think for the moment we are seeing the opposite occur. Intel has been continuing their roadmap and keeping things going in order to give people an excuse to upgrade their old computers. So long as R&D is cheaper than the costs of the new parts then we will continue to see cheap powerful computers like we do today. The fear though (and I was influenced by this fear myself with my latest build), is that as disposable computers get more powerful, but always focus on power efficancy paired with 'good enough' processing, then the demand will shift enough that we will see major price increases for content-creation class hardware. And I think that shift will begin to happen in the next 2-5 years. That is part of the reason why I chose to upgrade now to have something 'good enough' for what I do, and if I feel in the next 2 years that the shift is really going to happen then I will upgrade again and break my normal 5 year upgrade cycle.
Even if mobile PCs become powerful enough to do video editing, the form factors involved do not allow for good expand-ability for the demands of such use. When the desktop form factor dies, so will a lot of lower end creativity, and that will be a sad day.

My pc's are "fast enough". The only thing that drives me to buy new now is better efficiency and more GPU power / efficiency for a decent price. Unfortunately the mid range 32nm GPU's that I thought was coming down the southern island pipeline was just a refresh 3.0....

Newer PCs can live longer than old ones. USB has all but eliminated the need for dedicated PCI (or ISA) slots for proprietary device interfaces, so you don't need to upgrade your motherboard to get more slots; now the smart devices use USB.

Until just recently, hard drives are plenty big, so we're not running out of space as fast. Some people didn't know how to open their PC and add a drive or memory, so with external drives, NAS, and plenty of how-to youtube videos, people aren't just going out and buying a whole new computer.

Hard drive prices have put many buyers on a "wait and see" buying plan. I'm one of them, holding off my entire build until the price gouging goes away...not ALL drive manufacturers were affected by the flooding, yet they all raised prices.

Finally, the economy isn't robust enough for people on the fence to just go out and buy a new PC. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people who are accustomed to getting a new machine every couple years sit back and "suffer" with a slow machine, weighing need against their budget. Even craigslist has higher prices for computers as sellers try to get the most they can.

Microsoft tried to make people upgrade their hardware for vista, that didnt go over to well.
The only reason i upgrade my machine every year, is for games and that is if my wallet says YES!. Work seems to be on a 3-5 year cycle even if wallet says NO!

afaik, farmville doesn't require any more hardware power than previous years.

This.

I built my computer a few years ago, with a Core 2 Quad and enough RAM for what I do... I did put in an SSD and I have a nice video card that I upgraded about a year ago, but honestly, I wasn't really taxing my old card, and only upgraded that because it was just a phenomenal deal... I can't see any reason to upgrade. Everything runs silky smooth...

When I upgraded my dad to a Core 2 Quad an an SSD, he hasn't seen any real performance barriers for basic computing tasks... I expect that computer to keep running until the power supply burns out... In which case, I'll replace that, and let the computer self-destruct from constant use for 6 or 7 years...

Right now, I want more internet bandwidth, and easier integration with our existing TVs... I have no need to upgrade to some kind of crazy graphics card or add 32 GB RAM or even a larger SSD... If we are all satisfied with our systems, why but new ones?

The main driver for the industry now is laptops, and laptops breaking or getting stolen...

The economy sucks.
Old PCs still get the job done.

The decline in PC sales indicates the decline of smart people or maybe the increase of smart people who want to build their own PC

People are also using other devices to connect to the internet. I know people who rarely use their PC/laptop. They use their smart phone or shiny new tablet. Another factor is that the old Core2 that everyone bought years back are still handling windows 7, many time with just a simple memory upgrade. Why upgrade when you don't have to. Especially with the economy the way it is and many people still looking for work or rebuilding their savings?

After the service I have experienced with HP and Dell, I have no further reason to do business with them.

The best service is my own service after building my own machine. Old PCs DO get the job done. My Dell Dimension 3000 (Back when Dell had worthwhile customer service) does all I need it to do.