Despite Windows 10 Push, PC Shipments To Decline 9 Percent This Year
With Windows 10 already installed on more than 75 million systems, you could be forgiven for expecting that the operating system’s success would lead to an uptick in sales of PCs. In fact, PC sales are continuing to decline and this year’s PC shipments is expected to land about 9 percent lower. But it’s not all bad news: by 2017, computer shipments should be up a bit, and that increase is expected to continue through 2019.
News of the PC sales decline comes from the research gurus at International Data Corp (IDG), who announced today that early predictions of a 6.2-percent decline in PC shipments were being revised upwards to 8.7 percent.
Part of reason Windows 10 hasn’t had a huge impact on sales is its price. The OS is a free upgrade to anyone running Windows 7 or newer and its minimum specs accommodate a huge swath of computers in use today. Where previous versions of Windows required that users buy the upgrade or invest in a brand-new PC, Windows 10’s upgrade has been about as painless as a typical Windows update.
That’s not to say that Windows 10 won’t convince many users to guy a new PC – it will. Dell and other PC makers already have systems available with Windows 10, and those systems will surely attract plenty of users who don’t want to mess with even an easy upgrade. Still, the availability of Windows 10 for free means that OS releases will probably never again have the same impact on sales cycles.
So far, there isn’t much indication that users are overly concerned about Windows 10’s privacy settings. Russia has voiced its concern, but reaction from ordinary users has been fairly muted. If Microsoft’s assertion that 75 million systems have already moved to the new OS is accurate, then it looks like privacy worries aren’t going to give Windows 10 much trouble.
News of the PC sales decline comes from the research gurus at International Data Corp (IDG), who announced today that early predictions of a 6.2-percent decline in PC shipments were being revised upwards to 8.7 percent.
Part of reason Windows 10 hasn’t had a huge impact on sales is its price. The OS is a free upgrade to anyone running Windows 7 or newer and its minimum specs accommodate a huge swath of computers in use today. Where previous versions of Windows required that users buy the upgrade or invest in a brand-new PC, Windows 10’s upgrade has been about as painless as a typical Windows update.
That’s not to say that Windows 10 won’t convince many users to guy a new PC – it will. Dell and other PC makers already have systems available with Windows 10, and those systems will surely attract plenty of users who don’t want to mess with even an easy upgrade. Still, the availability of Windows 10 for free means that OS releases will probably never again have the same impact on sales cycles.
So far, there isn’t much indication that users are overly concerned about Windows 10’s privacy settings. Russia has voiced its concern, but reaction from ordinary users has been fairly muted. If Microsoft’s assertion that 75 million systems have already moved to the new OS is accurate, then it looks like privacy worries aren’t going to give Windows 10 much trouble.
