Worldwide PC shipments reached 89.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2012, down 6.4% compared to the same quarter in 2011 and worse than the forecast decline of 4.4%. This was originally reported by Digitimes, who quotes the IDC.
Although the quarter marked the beginning of a new stage in the PC industry with the launch of Windows 8, its impact did very little to change slow PC demand. The PC market continued to take a back seat to competing devices such as tablets. As a result, the fourth quarter of 2012 marked the first time in more than five years that the PC market has seen a year-on-year decline during the holiday season.
"Many people are going for tablets instead," Los Angeles industry analyst Paul Mueller tells this column. "Just go to Starbucks or Coffee Bean. You will see that half of the people there are using tablets. This certainly wasn't the case two years ago."
Twitter: @ddeino
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