INDEPENDENT NEWS

PC sales could be worse

Published: Tue 18 Jul 2017 08:19 PM
~650,000 machines still ship every day, but that's the lowest total since 2007
Source: PC sales still slumping, but more slowly than feared • The Register
Simon Sharwood writes:
Both analyst firms suggest that rising component prices have led to rising PC prices which has led to falling enthusiasm from buyers, especially consumers. DRAM, LCD panels and solid state disks prices all share some of the blame for the rise, as all are in short supply.
This is nonsense: not Sharwood's reporting, what the analysts say. They are clutching at straws. Rising PC prices are not the issue, prices have only ticked up a smidgeon. That is not enough to affect sales if there is an underlying demand.
The demand is not there. Customers have little appetite or need to start buying PCs again in large numbers. Not today.
Two points stand out from the lastest PC sales figures.
First, HP moved ahead of Lenovo. Sharwood quotes a Gartner analyst talking about Lenovo pulling back to focus on margins.
That's a plausible explanation, but I think there's more to it.
HP has been on a roll since the business split from HP Enterprise. Hardware quality is better than in the past and the designs are more interesting. While it would overdoing it to use a word like excitement, HP has momentum.Some good products too.
Second, Apple has moved to fourth place. Apple's year-on-year sales are flat, in a falling market that means the company's market share has climbed. It's not much of a climb, about 0.3 percent, but that's enough to move Apple past slumping Asus.
Digitl
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