Gartner Projects PC Sales Down 9 Percent for Q3

Tiernan Ray, writing last week for Barron’s Tech Trader:

Research firm Gartner a short while ago reported that PC shipments in Q3 declined by 8.6% from the prior-year period, to 80.3 million units, marking “the sixth consecutive quarter of declining worldwide shipments.”

One year ago, they were saying PC sales were down because PC buyers were waiting for Windows 8.

Six months ago, they were saying PC sales were down because PC buyers didn’t like Windows 8.

The time has come to simply acknowledge that the PC era peaked two years ago, and has started to irreversibly contract. The only question is how fast.

★ Wednesday, 16 October 2013