The traditional notebook and desktop PC industry experienced its best quarter in nearly two years, according to numbers released by the Gartner research firm this week. Yes, shipments declined by 1.7 percent, but that was much better than in recent quarters, exceeding forecasts for the period.
Microsoft’s end of support for Windows XP played a role in the improvement, as companies and businesses replaced their old machines, but looking at the numbers over a broader period of time shows a trend that would return the industry to growth mode, if it continues. The chart above is from the Statista statistics portal, using Gartner data.
That said, year-over-year percentages can be deceiving. Looking at the raw numbers, the 76.6 million unit shipments in the first quarter of this year were still less than the 84.4 million shipments logged by Gartner in the same quarter of 2011. In other words, the PC industry still isn’t back to being as big as it was three years ago.
