PC Shipments Saw 10-12% Decline in Q1 2020 Due To Coronavirus (venturebeat.com) 28
After years of bad news, PC shipments saw growth in 2019. Now the coronavirus crisis is cutting the celebration short. From a report: The PC market fell between 9.8% and 12.3% in Q1 2020, according to research firms Gartner and IDC. Gartner's numbers indicate the drop was the "sharpest decline since 2013, due to the COVID-19 outbreak," while IDC said the "stark decline" was the result of "reduced supply due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the world's largest supplier of PCs." The PC market saw six years of quarterly PC shipment declines, followed by mixed quarters in 2018 and 2019. Last year was more good than bad: Q1 was negative, while Q2, Q3, and Q4 were positive.
Something isn't adding up (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the shelter-in-place orders hit, it was impossible to find a laptop at Staples, Best Buy, or Microcenter. Ordering from our Dell sales rep at work, we were getting 4-8 week lead times for Optiplex orders, even for just a handful of machines. It seemed that the entire free world was coming to the realization that they couldn't work from home using their iPads and cell phones, and were replacing their aging desktops and laptops all at once.
So, I figure it two ways: either this report is coming from higher up in the supply chain (and Q2 is going to spike), or a whole lot of people are looking for writeoffs.
Re:Something isn't adding up (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Once the shelter-in-place orders hit, it was impossible to find a laptop at Staples, Best Buy, or Microcenter.
I wanted to get better monitors, they were sold out at multiple places. I suspected it was due to demand from newly remote workers.
That said, maybe the declines are due to reduced corporate purchasing
Re:Something isn't adding up (Score:4, Interesting)
It is talking about Q1 and covers sales from factories to distributors. There is some lag (2-6 weeks typically) but there are two problems: the supply chain problem, unlike the Dell's and Apple's everyone managed to purchase, most other companies (HP especially) ship direct from China and have seen major delays and non-distribution since February. Warrantied HP server parts right now takes months even Dell has seen some major delays in some parts, which means things are on order but aren't being delivered and paid for, not so much in its business desktop and laptop lines but Dell-EMC has been warning about parts shortages for pretty much all product lines.
The second problem is that consumer sales are down. Yes, businesses are scrambling for devices, but consumer sales are pretty much dead right now. People are preparing for the worst, they aren't going to go out and buy a $1200 gaming rig if what they have right now does its job.
Re: (Score:1)
And it's not just the workforce. The schoolroom is being replaced by the screen. Here, Google Classroom is replacing the Little Red Schoolhouse.Public monies fund the schools (to varying degrees of adequacy), but I haven't heard of any schoolboard declaring that PCs and internet connectivity are entitlements for everybody under 18.
As someone who's done a bit of adult ed and course development, I'm skeptical aboiut how well this will work out. Teachers can ride herd over students when they can watch them. Th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Once the shelter-in-place orders hit, it was impossible to find a laptop at Staples, Best Buy, or Microcenter. Ordering from our Dell sales rep at work, we were getting 4-8 week lead times for Optiplex orders, even for just a handful of machines. It seemed that the entire free world was coming to the realization that they couldn't work from home using their iPads and cell phones, and were replacing their aging desktops and laptops all at once.
So, I figure it two ways: either this report is coming from higher up in the supply chain (and Q2 is going to spike), or a whole lot of people are looking for writeoffs.
As somebody who works for a company that makes money every time 90% of the worlds desktops, laptops, and servers are sold I can tell you right now that March was a record month for units sold in ~40 years of company history. We are having a record year. My personal experience in trying to buy a new computer during this time coincides with this - you can't get a laptop right now without a wait.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm uisng a work computer. If I had to work from home I would strongly push back against being forced to use my own computer; especially while I'm forbidden from visiting non-essential computer stores to start upgrading it. Probably against many company's policies anyway to use a home computer to connect to office servers (virus ridden, unauthorized applications, lack of IT spyware, etc).
Re: (Score:3)
That's probably just local (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)
That's weird (Score:2)
I had to assemble two more rigs out of spare parts for various "special" cases like some of their activities which are now online.
Re:That's weird (Score:4, Interesting)
Two issues:
-Corporate demand pretty much flatlining. Most companies just paused purchasing to wait this thing out.
-Factories shut down. Even if there is demand, lots of the usual factories had to shut down, so stores sold out but could not be restocked.
Running out of Windows 7 users to upgrade (Score:3)
I'm the only person (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Except for now working from home, my work laptop always has a keyboard and mouse. Otherwise there's a bit of productivity dip, and that's why a Macbook which has a good keyboard and touchpad (Apple seems to have some key patents such that Windows touchpads are required to be utterly infuriating to use). I'm still missing things like a pageup key, or having my palm touch the touchpad and screw up my windows. The screen is tiny and intended for people with 20/20 vision, so I did manage to bring home a monito
Re: (Score:3)
What you said and a laptop are not mutually exclusive. A lot
Re: (Score:2)
I would still say the desktop PC is cheaper. If you build it yourself, you can get quality parts for about the same price as a laptop, and it's much easier to upgrade things. Sure if you get a prebuilt machine you will end up with a bad power supply, but if you get a basic laptop you will end up with something you will have to junk in 4 years. I bought my last desktop 5 years ago and it's still going strong and it only cost me $600. Nothing has broken on it, but even if something did, I could replace th
Re: (Score:2)
Not saying there aren't crappy desktops. I've found the cheap laptops to be really shoddily made. Especially if you intend to use them as a portable device, they fall apart really quickly. Power connectors, hinges, and keyboards are weak spots. Plus if you have to type on them, the built-in keyboards are almost always terrible.
If you need a cheap computer for general office work, some of the mini desktops from Dell and Lenovo seem hard to beat. They are basically laptop parts in a small form factor and
Most content is consumed, not created (Score:2)
I don't feel awkward using what works ergonomically. I have no respect for the herd (and after seeing who it elects to office no one else should either).
The articles are clickbait.
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, docking stations.
But for real work (defined as work requiring a proper setup?), you are correct, a proper setup cannot be beat. (For me that's a docking station, a kvm, dual monitor, a desktop, and other standard kit - keyboard mice light etc.
I can believe it (Score:2)
The article is talking about shipments from China (Score:2)
and not sales in the US. Sure there was a recent up-tick in sales due to people working from home. But the article is talking about shipments out of China which were reduced in Q1 due to the corona virus.
TikToks can't be recorded on PCs (Score:2)
Anyone who PC games already has their rig.
No one is going to buy a new PC when the economy is shut down and household income threatened, even with a stimulus.
But I'd wager that more people would be buying a new phone/tablet to weather the quarantine.
death by 1,000 cuts (Score:1)
there are lots of reasons to NOT buy a WinTel device. ARM CPU getting as powerful as Intel? AMD chipsets have more PCIe lanes and more cores than Intel? Windows 10 is not what consumers or IT asked for?
Maybe they all purchased iPad Pro's and have no need for another desktop or WinTel device. VMware showed us that we have has so much CPU power since Nehalem that we can run a virtual desktop fast enough that users can't tell the difference between VDI and a Fat Desktop. AMD was the vendor that brought so