According to International Data Corporation (IDC), the global PC shipments reached 68.5 million units in the first quarter ended March 2015. Further, the PC shipments including desktops, notebooks and laptops witnessed a decline of 6.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2015.
IDC has stated that despite the decline in total global PC shipments over the last quarter, the PC market has surpassed industry expectations despite weak currencies and product transitions. As per the research firm, the growth in the PC shipments was led by portables, particularly the emerging product categories such as chromebooks, bing, ultraslims and convertibles.
Further, IDC has noted that with vendors facing intense competition, the PC market is expected to witness further consolidation. Pricing continues to be a key growth driver for the PC market particularly with the large volume of entry stock keeping units (SKUs) impacting a still tenuous demand for higher priced systems that is needed to sustain a more diverse PC ecosystem. In fact, pricing pressure is leading a number of vendors to bring in premium SKUs into formerly mid-level pricing tiers.
