Worldwide Device Shipments to Grow 1.9% in 2016
January 20, 2016 | Gartner, Inc.Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2016, a 1.9 percent increase from 2015, according to Gartner, Inc. End-user spending in constant U.S. dollars is expected to decline 0.5 percent for the first time.
The device market in 2016 will continue to be impacted by country-level economic conditions. “It’s clear that vendors can no longer market their products with the mind of only targeting the mature and emerging markets," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "Driven by economic variations the market is splitting into four categories: economically challenged mature markets, economically stable mature markets and the same for emerging markets. Russia and Brazil will fall into the category of economically challenged emerging markets while India will be stable, and Japan will belong to the economically challenged mature market.”
Businesses Will Adopt Windows 10 Earlier and Boost the PC Market in 2017
The global PC shipment market is expected to total 287 million units in 2016, a decline of 1 percent year over year, but on pace to increase 4 percent in 2017.
“Ultramobile premium devices are expected to drive the PC market forward with the move to Windows 10 and PCs built around Intel’s Skylake architecture,” said Mr. Atwal. “We expect that businesses will deploy Windows 10 faster than with previous Windows upgrades.” Gartner’s global survey of 3,000 business respondents conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015 across six countries (Brazil, China, India, France, U.K. and U.S.), found that nearly 80 percent of businesses are expected to have completed the testing and evaluation of Windows 10 within 12 months and over 60 percent within nine months.
“Given the shorter testing and evaluation period, many businesses could start to migrate by the end of 2016,” said Mr. Atwal. “By the end of 2017, many business are looking to move as much as 40 percent of their installed base onto new Windows 10 devices, mainly driven by the appeal hybrid touch-screen 2-1. This will be the catalyst for growth in the PC market in 2017.
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