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When Intel outed the Ultrabook concept last year, it hoped the slim laptops would be the saviour of the PC market, clawing back sales it had lost to Apple’s svelte offerings. The latest figures show, however, that all is not well in the land of PC.
Figures from research companies Gartner and IDC put sales of PCs at 87.5m and 86.7m units respectively. To put that in context, PC sales were at around 93 million units in 2010, so that’s a pretty dramatic slump of 6 million units in less than 2 years. Why the fall? Well, over the last 2 years, smartphone and tablet sales have shot up while PCs have been left with pretty much no innovation to make people go out and upgrade. Also, the long-awaited launch of Windows 8 has had people delaying that latest shiny laptop ’till it’s got Metro on it.
These results aren’t so much of a surprise, as it’s continuing a trend that’s been going on for a while. The surprise, and the real kick in the teeth to Intel, is that the Ultrabooks it’s invested £200 million in have failed to take off. You’ve gotta feel sorry for them – pouring time, money, cash and some pretty awesome tech into products, just for people to turn their noses up in favour of an iPad. I like ultrabooks: they’re everything the laptop’s wanted to be for a while, as if all the PC manufacturers suddenly realised design does matter. Still, the wave of IvyBridge-powered ultrabooks has only just kicked off, so Intel’s got one last chance to claw back some market share. Here’s hoping it does — I’m tired of Apple ruling the roost with the Air. [Gartner and IDC via Guardian]
Image credit: Angry Businessman from Shutterstock
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Isn’t this just logical? Most people have a computer that does most of what they want from it and no need to upgrade. The majority of people who care about games have moved to consoles, so there isn’t the constant need to update the PC to keep up with changing features. Smartphones have a contract attached which generally means that people will upgrade when they get a new contract and tablets is still a very young market which has plenty of romm to grow.
i simply have to reply to you comment “The majority of people who care about games have moved to consoles” . This is utterly untrue. there is a massive market of avid PC fans, they just build desktop PC’s themselves and buy components. there are whole ranges of components devoted specifically for gamers and it is a massive market. Check out Asus’ Republic of Gamers product line. Trouble is, these guys don’t want laptops either. why sacrifice performance for form factor if it’s only ever going to be stationary. It seems ultrabooks are chasing a market segment that doesn’t exist.
clarification: people who build custom machines do not feature in any of these statistics.
Oh I am aware there are a number of people who build their own PC’s for gaming, but hasn’t the amount of first line development for PC games (ie games that are released first on PCs and only later if at all) declined massively. Obviously there is still a market as Nvidia can still keep bringing out a new graphic card every 5 minutes.
Ultrabooks are seen as more of a luxury laptop and cost anywhere from £200-£500 more than a regular PC world slab. Have Intel taken in consideration that peoples disposable income (including companies cash flow) have reduced and are trying to make saving where they can especially in a recession. Ultrabooks offer the same kind of performance but with a higher price tag and as most people do basic tasks twitter, facebook, email and the like they can buy a tablet for much less.
I think the problem is with trying to copy MacBooks, is that people who want MacBook-like design will just buy MacBooks…
This is the Netbook market converting to smartphones and tablets, there is literally no reason to buy a netbook now. Everybody uses their phone or a tablet for mobile browsing.
What would actually be useful is a comparison of normal laptop and desktop sales, ignoring netbooks.
I thought the reason why hardware manufactures wanted people to move away from netbooks was that there was little profit margin in it for them. Unlike with ultrabooks where the impressive sounding name almost justifies the high price tag.
Anyway to all you netbook haters, I really think they are here to stay. Tablets are great until you realise the screen wont stay upright when you let go of it. Doh!
Maybe laptop and desktop PCs simply last for longer and do the job in hand without any fuss, and aren’t the type of product people impulse buy because they aren’t a glamorous gadget anymore.
I’ve only just upgraded from a 6-7 year old PC because the HDD finally failed. It was still fast and could run the latest versions of all the software I used, including Photoshop and current web browsers.
No wonder PC sales are down, frankly. It seems most people who use PCs now just want expensive ways to browse Facebook.
So a downturn in sales of PCs has nothing to do with a long term world wide financial slump, one that has affected almost every single other market.