Gartner: World PC shipments dropped 8.3% in Q4 2015

World PC shipments totalled 75.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 representing a 8.3 per cent decline from the fourth quarter of 2014, a new report by Gartner has revealed.

Preliminary results by Gartner Inc., an Information Technology research and advisory firm, for the year 2105 shows that PC shipments totalled 288.7 million units, an 8 per cent decline from 2014.

“The fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline,” Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner says.

[blockquote right=”pull-right” cite=”Gartner”]“The fourth quarter of 2015 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of worldwide PC shipment decline.”[/blockquote]

“Holiday sales did not boost the overall PC shipments, hinting at changes to consumers’ PC purchase behaviour. On the business side, Windows 10 generally received positive reviews, but as expected, Windows 10 migration was minor in the fourth quarter as many organisations were just starting their testing period”, according to Gartner.

“All regions registered a decrease in shipments. Currency devaluation issues continued to impact EMEA, Latin America and Japan. Collectively EMEA, Japan and Latin America saw their markets reduced by nearly 10 percent in 2015,” she says.

Gartner’s outlook for PC shipments in 2016 is for a decline of 1 percent compared with 2015, with the potential for a soft recovery in late 2016.

Kitagawa said the PC market is still in the middle of structural change which will reduce the PC installed base in the next few years.