Windows 8

Adding touch capabilities to laptops and notebooks doesn’t seem to be a magical elixir for reviving the PC industry. Unnamed industry sources tell Digitimes that touch panel suppliers actually expect to see lower sales of touch screen PCs in the second half of 2013 than in the first half. Digitimes‘ sources also say that “Windows 8 has not helped the touch notebook market develop as much as expected,” which backs up a recent report from IDC that lowered the firm’s estimates for touch-based laptop shipments in 2013. Microsoft had hoped that Windows 8 would really start to take off once more OEMs started shipping more PCs with touch capabilities but so far that doesn’t seem to be the case.

There is absolutely no question at this point that tablets are responsible for the global decline in PC sales. This was an inevitability that top market research firms fought at first in an effort to guard their clients, but the numbers don’t lie: PC sales are falling as tablet sales skyrocket. There are still signs of life for PCs though, and one is that people for whom work is a priority still need the software and multitasking benefits afforded by laptops and desktops. Recent market research from Deloitte found that 82% of college students own computers and 80% own smartphones, but just 18% own tablets. “The combination of smartphones and laptops makes the tablet redundant for students,” Deloitte’s Brent Schoenbaum told MarketWatch. Dealnews.com’s Louis Ramirez added that “unless you’re shooting for a degree in Angry Birds, tablets are a horrible back-to-school purchase.”

Industry watchers collectively cringed last week when market research firms Gartner and IDC each published second-quarter shipment estimates that showed a huge decline of about 11% on-year. That massive slide is representative of Windows 8’s continued failure to prompt consumers and businesses to upgrade, though a new wave of Haswell-powered laptops with huge battery life improvements may finally sway some users in the coming months. In the meantime though, it looks like Q2’s shipment decline might have been even worse than Gartner and IDC estimated.

According to Digitimes Research, which bases its numbers on data from its numerous supply chain and manufacturer sources, global notebook PC shipments declined 15.4% on-year in the second quarter, which is even worse than the 13.7% drop in the first quarter. Laptop sales outnumber desktop sales by a huge margin, so this is a very troubling trend to say the least.

Digitimes Research noted that Lenovo and Dell were the only two notebook vendors to see sequential shipment growth last quarter, as Samsung, Apple, Toshiba and other vendors all saw global shipments decline quarter-over-quarter.