Gartner: PC Market Shows Signs Of Recovery

The PC market has been decidedly down as of late, as tablets in particular have taken a big chunk of the market share. Thus, many have been bemoaning the death of the PC while others (most of us at HH included) have been more optimistic about the future of the PC. Gartner has given reason for the latter view in a new report.

Projecting that computing devices overall (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles, and phones) should see a 4.2% increase in 2014, Gartner research director Ranjit Atwal added, "2014 will be marked by a relative revival of the global PC market.”

Lenovo M58e Desktop
Lenovo M58e Desktop

Granted, what that means is merely that the global PC market will see less loss--it won’t be seeing an actual uptick in shipments--but a drop of 2.9% in 2014 is much better than the more precipitous decline of 9.5% in 2013. Gartner believes that the numbers will come in large part from businesses who will (finally) upgrade their fleets from Windows XP-based machines.

Even so, there’s reason for optimism on the traditional, consumer desktop and notebook PC side, too; Gartner projects a slowing contraction there of 6.7% in 2014 and 5.3% in 2015. All of the above jibes with another recent report that PC sales will enjoy strong growth in the second half of this year.

Surely PC makers around the world would prefer that shipments grow instead of shrink, but at least the bleeding is slowing.