Surprise, surprise; PC sales expected to drop in 2009

By on Mar 3, 2009 at 5:23 PM
Retail March 3, 2009

Just in case the current economic climate didn’t tip you off, Gartner has issued new predictions for PC sales in 2009 and things don’t look good. You don’t say? According to the firm, the PC market is in for its sharpest decline ever in 2009 with sales expected to drop a massive 11.9 percent. Should Gartner’s prediction be accurate, the PC business is in for a decline nearly three times its current record slide of 3.2 percent in 2001. Insights from George Shiffler, research director at Gartner:

The PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC suppliers grow increasingly cautious.

The firm sees laptop sales rising around 9 percent year-over-year in 2009 while progress in the portable department is offset, and then some, by a steep 32 percent drop off in desktop sales. Gartner also predicts a 10.4 percent sales decline in emerging markets which saw an 11.1 percent growth in its prior worst year, 2002. Long story short, 2008 was bleak and 2009 is shaping up to be even worse.

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16 Comments

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  • blur(p)s

    Aw… doesn’t look to good and sounds like PCs are going to have to really step it up with what they bring to us, the general public. It’s going to take some innovation to get people to throw money at purchases that can become unnecessary by less expensive laptops and upgradeable machines.

  • bluehorseshoe

    Gotta love those wizards at Gartner. Masters of the obvious…and after the fact.

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • Ariel Levy

    Remember EggHead? I use to love that store…kinda reminded me of it.
    -A

  • Adonis

    This isn’t unexpected.

  • http://palfrei.blogspot.com palfrei

    I’m reading this on an AMD Athlon 2400 XP 2.0 GHz with 512 MB of RAM and a GeForce FX 5200, and I’m just fine with it. It can’t run Crysis but as I don’t care, it’s enough and I don’thave a laptop, just a Palm T/X

    Though, I really game a lot that’s why I have a PS2 and a Wii connected to a 21′ CRT [yes, I use my Nintendo Wii a lot even to play Gamecube games, which are great and cheap, by the way].

    So, my question is “Why is this sooo terrible? I mean, I have neither updated nor upgraded my PC in what, five years [a lot of time before the economic crashdown]… and I’m fine. Why wouldn’t be the rest of the world?

    In my opinion, the reason is that people in “developed” countries have got MISSused to buying the latest; as it happened in my country, Argetina, during the gloooorius 90′s until our currency-board system collapsed in 2001 as a consecuence of the free-market banking policy.

    Sounds familiar? O_O

  • Fone_Fanatic

    The motherboard on my PC fried about 2 months ago and needed something quick, so i just went to the mall and picked up a macbook because Fry’s is further out.

    I’ve been to Fry’s several times since i got my macbook but have yet to buy a motherboard for my pc.. its been replaced by my macbook which is with my 95% of the time.

  • Kimberly

    Wow am I shocked !

  • meeno

    This means that deals will be plenty in the future. I just bought an intel quad core with a half gig video card running on vista 64 bit for 450.

  • Ryan H

    I wonder if this will lead to more computer part sales from places such as Newegg or TigerDirect.

    With people a bit more frugal with their money, this is expected I suppose.

  • http://tsimmonsco.com AgentScribe

    No surprise here. But, this means that the computer/electronics market has a chance to renovate and innovate.
    The dinosaurs will have trouble with the necessary paradigm shifts while the independents that have been struggling in the wings now have an opportunity to stand out, to shine and be noticed.
    Consumers benefit with unexpected new products and those looking for bargains can find them in products the manufacturers are having trouble moving.

    Agent

  • http://exotic1.blogspot.com/ Rhonda Martin

    Ok so if the PC declines and laptops increases will they up the prices on laptops to make up the difference? I would think they would try and figure a way to keep profits from soaring.

  • cRich

    Yet apple remains safe from the recession. Premium brands either go under or stay relatively unaffected during times like these… which means they’ll do just fine. And if dell keeps up the “OMG LETS PRICE THIS PC FOR $2 AND SEE IF WE PROFIT”, they’ll loose a lot of money. Dell should only have netbooks priced around $350 if they want to sell cheap and not loose cash!

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: West Milford United States

  • Scott

    Duuuurrrrr….

    I think desktops in general are heading towards death. With the power available in the average laptop on the market today and prices continuing to fall, the only place I see a market for desktops is corporate offices, but as a former sys admin, I see even that being able to shift to notebooks instead entirely (why limit your workers to only working at work when for a few hundred bucks more per employee over a 3-4 year span they can take their work home with them? Heck even equiping them with wwan cards account makes some sense ($32k/year total cost for the worker or $33k/year for the same worker that can now take their work anywhere (and are thus likely to work more)…makes sense to me as a business owner.

  • jazzyl

    Hey the recession has got the best of every industry its not only the pc market but the motor industry and many other industries. Well something really needs to be done as many jobs will be lost if it continues like this.

    Sent via BlackBerry

  • NFan

    @cRich: “Yet apple remains safe from the recession.”

    Every other industry is affected, people are still losing jobs, and PC sales are slowing. If people can’t afford PCs then how can they afford Macs?

    I think the smartest thing Apple could do this year is to finally sell the OS and let people build their own machines with resorting to Hackintosh methods.

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10166252-37.html?tag=newsEditorsPicksArea.0

  • NFan

    I meant to say “without resorting”

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