个人电脑市场面临挑战

Seven straight quarters of flat growth for the PC market. The 2nd quarter numbers show a sales decline of about 100 thousand PC units from a year ago, despite the release of high-end Ultrabooks that utilize Intel’s new “Ivy Bridge” chip.

Bob O'Donnell, IDC Vice President, said, “Shipments to date of high end Ultrabooks have been very, very disappointing and it’s clear that PC buyers are expecting to pay significantly less. I think one of the interesting challenges around Ultrabooks is if Intel chose to hit a lower price point when they started these things off, they would have had a lot more success.”

Bob O’Donnell says while Ultrabooks rival the MacBook Air in quality— the perception that Ultrabooks are expensive has kept customers away. O’Donnell also says many people are simply waiting for Windows 8 to come out before buying their next PC.

A slowdown in China’s economy has also weighed heavily on the numbers. O’Donnell says “We’ve seen a general cooling of the economy in China. We’ve seen in the past that PC purchases are relatively closely related to general macroeconomic conditions. So if people are feeling good, they’ll buy PC’s.”

One PC maker “feeling good” right now is Lenovo, which gained a three-percent share of the market. In 2nd quarter sales, Lenovo trailed HP, the world’s top PC Maker, but only by a sliver—a scant 530 computers. Another reason for the overall slip in PC sales is the tablet.

IDC found people use a notebook computer 25-percent less if they also use a tablet. So, instead buying new PCs, industry analysts believe tablet users are hanging on to the PCs they already own.