A new study carried out by Gartner has found that computer sales will decrease to approximately 9.3% this year. The main reason behind the decrease is the fact that users are starting to keep their computer for longer periods of time in order to cut down their expenses. This came as a surprise since the same firm had made estimations that computer sales would increase rather than decrease. They continued to explain that the decrease was also influenced by the increasing sales of the popular iPad, among other tablets.
The study continued to find that tablets are not necessarily substituting computer sales but rather delaying them. Ranjil Atwal, research director, stated that mini-notebook sales have evidently decreased, and this has affected the overall computer sales. He highlighted that iPad purchases as substitution to regular computers was minimum, but still affected the final reports.
Interesting enough, Goldman Sachs declared that the tablets are one of the most advancing forces in the computer electronics industry in the last 30 years. They moved on to declare that they foresee the tablets coming strong upon the computer market. This would push computer manufacturers to reorganize their marketing plans in order to find new ways of staying profitable. Currently the computer industry is ruled by both Intel and giant Microsoft.
Perhaps Microsoft’s soft spot is their inability to adapt to new markets. There is no Windows platform that has been specially designed to run on tablets. On the other hand, Intel will also suffer because none of the tablets make use of their processors.
In the report, Atwal also stated that the computer industry (PC to be exact) is going through an overhauling stage where changes are performed done to the structure. This means that computers will no longer be standard sized and tailored, but will have to fit custom specialized needs. This alludes that the PC market will no longer constitute the whole market, but instead it will be just a small part of the larger market that includes televisions and phones. It is expected that consumers will want to combine the different devices in order to meet their own desires.
The report adds that in the following year and a half, computer replacements will be held up by fit substitutions. Raphael Vasquez, who assisted with the analysis of the study, stated that most companies were holding up on the substitution of their equipment due to the economy. However, this is expected to change since many companies have still to steer away from Windows XP and upgrade to Windows 7.
In addition, the shipment of PCs from Japan was affected by the earthquake and tsunami that took place in March. However, the incidence was minimal since distributors found alternate ways to deal with the shipments.
