Worldwide shipments of PCs, tablets and smartphones are expected to exceed 2.3 billion units in 2017, a decline of 0.3% from 2016.
This is according to a new report by research firm Gartner, which forecasts the device shipment market will return to growth in 2018 with a 1.6% increase in shipments.
"Overall, the shipment growth of the device market is steady for the first time in many years," says Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "PC shipments are slightly lower, while smartphone shipments are slightly higher - leading to a slight downward revision in shipments from the previous forecast."
According to Gartner, PC shipments are on pace to drop 3% in 2017, but the rate of decline is slower than in recent years, alleviated by Windows 10 replacement purchasing.
"PC buyers continue to put quality and functionality ahead of price. Many organisations are coming to the end of their evaluation periods for Windows 10, and are now increasing the speed at which they adopt new PCs as they see the clear benefits of better security and newer hardware," continues Atwal.
According to the Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC), global shipments of personal computing devices, comprised of traditional PCs (a combination of desktop, notebook and workstations) and tablets, are forecast to decline from a total of 435 million units in 2016 to 418.2 million units at the end of the forecast period in 2021.
"The new forecast comes on the heels of a stronger than expected showing for traditional PCs in 2016, when a combination of aggressive promotional activities in the second half of the year helped to drive stronger volumes of notebooks across both the consumer and commercial channels in the fourth quarter. Commercial notebook shipments grew more than 2% year-over-year as more Windows 10 trials translated into real deployments," says IDC.
Strong smartphone growth
Overall smartphone shipments will grow 5% in 2017, reaching nearly 1.6 billion units. End-user spending continues to shift from low-cost "utility" phones toward higher priced "basic" and "premium" smartphones, predicts Gartner.
The smartphone market, adds Gartner, is now more dependent on new devices that offer something different, as users are extending their purchasing cycles and need to be enticed to make a replacement.
"The Samsung S8 and S8 Plus have had a strong impact so far in 2017, with users undeterred by battery issues that affected the Note 7 at the end of 2016. This good start points to a rebound for Samsung," says Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. "Continued premium smartphone growth in 2017 will also be highly dependent on the forthcoming anniversary edition of Apple's iPhone, which should bring more-drastic feature and design upgrades than the last few iterations.
According to a research report from Strategy Analytics, global smartphone shipments grew 6% annually to reach 353 million units in Q1 2017. Samsung recaptured first position with 23% global smartphone market share, while Apple dipped to 14%.
"Global smartphone shipments grew a steady 6% annually from 333.1 million units in Q1 2016 to 353.3 million in Q1 2017," says Linda Sui, director at Strategy Analytics.
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