Significant growth is planned for 2012 and beyond, in spite of the Declaration of Steve Jobs at WWDC that Apple intends to "demote the PC and Mac to be just a device." Factoring in the new economic data and the effect of tablets and other devices, analyst firm IDC predicts sales will lower this year than expected initially. However, next year we should see the PC market recover - driven in particular by the sale of the laptop.
In the report of IDC, Loren Loverde, vice President Worldwide Consumer device Trackers, said the market was "certainly hit a slow patch", but long term fundamentals are still intact.
Laptops will be the main drivers of this growth, with 20% of global compound growth from 2010 to 2015 for new markets and 7% growth in mature markets. The PC market may get a coup de pouce, according to the report "thinner designs, plus long life of the battery, instant on, touch and other improvements" which will be more widely available in 2012.
The trend toward laptops thinner and lighter with batteries for longer life is already in the room, with Intel recently introduced sub-$ 1000 Ultrabooks and same business notebooks as the Lenovo ThinkPad X 1.
With these innovations of laptop in mind, Intel remains optimistic on sales of PCs this year. While the IDC has reduced its forecast for 2011 from 7.1% to 4.2% of growth of PC, Intel does not change its forecast of an 11 percent gain, according to the Wall Street Journal. Forecast from Intel are same on tablets may be cannibalizing one-third of the sales of the laptop.
There is little doubt that the iPad is begins sales of portable computers. But even with a focus more today than ever before on tablets, smartphones and cloud-based services and storage (e.g., the iCloud of Apple), the PC will still remain relevant, as the long-term growth prospects indicate. For many people, the laptop (or desktop) computer will continue to be the computer main, not just another peripheral.
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