Modest growth in PC shipments to end declining trend: Gartner

PC shipments could see a modest growth after declining for years, thanks to Microsoft's Windows OS says Gartner.

PC shipments could touch around 317 million in 2015, rising from 308 million units expected to ship this year, according to a study conducted by the research firm.

Shipments this year are expected to fall 2.9 per cent as against 2013, which was lower than previous yearly declines.

The ''revival'' of the PC market would be boosted by upgrades of old business PCs with Windows XP, which was no longer supported by Microsoft, according to Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner, PC World reported. According to his estimates roughly 60 million PCs would be upgraded this year.

Business upgrades would be mostly to Windows 7, avoiding Windows 8, which is viewed more as a tablet OS. The software giant could release a new OS sometime next year, which could supplant Windows 7 as the OS of choice for businesses.

However, companies would need time to test and deploy PC OS, as happened with Windows 7, which took over a year to get a foothold in businesses.

Counting PCs tablets and smartphones, Gartner said computing devices shipments were projected to reach 2.4 billion units this year, rising by 4.2 per cent as against the previous year. Shipments would be further up to 2.6 billion units in 2015.

However, even as PC shipments rise, Windows' share of the operating systems for 2013, on all devices -- smartphones, tablets, PCs, ultra-light form factors, and PC-tablet hybrids dipped 5.8 per cent against the year before, an additional half-percentage point from the 5.3 per cent the research company pegged in January 2014 for the year prior, Computerworld reported.

This year, Windows' share of the device operating system market would be up 2.3 per cent to 333.4 million devices, the bulk of which would be for traditional PCs and what Gartner dubbed "ultramobiles, premium," or the top-tier notebooks. Windows' growth, however, would come from smaller systems, especially smartphones.

"Windows phones will exhibit strong growth from a low base in 2014, and are projected to reach a 10% market share by 2018, up from 4% in 2014," said Annette Zimmermann, a research director at Gartner, in a statement yesterday.

According to Gartner, in 2015, Windows would power 373.7 million shipped devices, a year-on-year increase of 12.1 per cent.