Personal computers Slide rule

CONSUMERS and businesses are buying more computing devices than ever. The trouble for PC-makers is that ever fewer of those devices are desktop or laptop machines—and the trend is accelerating. International Data Corporation's latest report on PC sales shows a drop of 13.9% worldwide year on year, with 76.3m units shipped in the first quarter of 2013. The United States saw a slightly smaller decline of 12.7% to 14.2m units.This is the fourth consecutive quarter in which global PC sales have declined, and the numbers are significantly worse than IDC's own forecasts. The headline figure masks big differences between PC-makers. Lenovo's sales were flat, whereas HP's fell by 23.7% and Acer's plummetted by 31.3%. Even Microsoft's new Windows 8, which was released last October and which manufacturers hoped would buoy sales, could not reverse the decline. Indeed, its unfamiliar new interface may be partly responsible for it.


A few years ago PC sales were propped up by netbooks—cheap and cheerful laptops which many market leaders aimed at students and emerging markets. Then came the iPad, which proved that a tablet could be powerful, light and, if not exactly cheap (Apple's cheapest model was $500), at least affordable. Tablets duly put the kibosh on netbooks. While Apple still has the largest share of tablet sales by far, about 40%, the market has grown beyond it, with IDC pegging worldwide shipments of all tablets at 52.5m units in the fourth quarter of 2012, the latest available.


Apple, which makes desktop and laptop computers as well as tablets, suffered a smaller hit than other PC-makers. It also still commands a premium over other manufacturers for its sleek designs. And unlike other PC-makers, it makes up for lost PC sales with new tablet sales. HP has reintroduced tablets this year, after killing its mobile division a few years ago. (In an interview on April 10th Meg Whitman, its boss since 2011, was brimming with good cheer.) Of the next four biggest PC-makers, Lenovo, Dell, Acer and Asus, only the last has a tablet business of any size, but its ranks a distant fourth in that market, behind Apple, Samsung and Amazon.

Ever more people are finding that tablets satisfy all their computing needs. PC-makers are also to a certain extent victims of their own success: computers sold since about 2008 have enough memory, hard-disk storage and processing power to run the latest versions of the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Only the most demanding users—among them gamers, animators and photographers—have a pressing need for the latest and greatest.

The PC market may get a fillip from Microsoft. A year from now the company will cease all support for its ancient Windows XP operating system and Office 2003 software package, which remain installed on tens of millions of computers worldwide. Microsoft hopes to bully users—especially corporate IT departments rather fond of the robust XP—to switch to its new Windows 8, sales of which have not been as perky as hoped. But the move might prompt even more users to flock to tablets instead.