back to article PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

Sales of personal computers rose in 2018’s second quarter, making it the best time to be in the PC business since 2012. News of the sale rise came from analyst firms IDC and Gartner who’ve both hit F9 on their spreadsheets recording Q2 shipments and found a positive number. Gartner found 62.1 million PC shipments, up a 1.4 per …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Click Bait'

    "Neither analyst firm was willing to declare the PC market has moved into a sustainable recovery phase"

    That's the part to really focus on. When has Gartner ever been right anyway? As long as buying a PC is primarily supporting the 'Surveillance Economy', then the retailers, hardware OEM's, Redmond... Can all f-off!

  2. Tchou

    How much did Gartner received to say the bump up is because of Windows 10?

    1. Ole Juul

      And how many of those installations get wiped because the computer was purchased for the purpose of putting some other OS on it? OK, I admit that's perhaps not a lot, but I doubt they track that.

      1. Christian Berger

        I'd say that on the second purchase (after refurbishment) the majority of Thinkpads will run something other than Windows.

        1. WolfFan Silver badge

          I'd say that on the second purchase (after refurbishment) the majority of Thinkpads will run something other than Windows.

          The vast majority of Thinkpads I've seen are running Windows, even after being refurbished. Typically they're running Windows 7 or sometimes even XP (though not many modern Thinkpads can be made to load XP) but at least 80% of the are running Windows, and not anything else. Of those which are not running Windows, a substantial number are running mac OS, and many more are running BSD, usually FreeBSD, as we have a colony of FreeBSD daemons roaming around here. Sorry, penguinistas, but Linux is bringing up the rear even in refurb Thinkpad land. Around here, anyway.

      2. Avatar of They
        Thumb Up

        Actually probably much higher than you think if it is education or NHS or Banks etc. where legacy systems mean they get wiped for Windows 7 (or even XP.)

        Not sure on your downvotes as I know every PC and laptop we get in a large organisation is wiped for windows 7 image. Windows 10 just ain't ready for us.

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          "wiped for Windows 7 (or even XP.)"

          Would they have drivers for modern H/W? With Linux there can be a problem with that gets resolved pretty quickly. Not so easy when the OS vendor has washed their hands of it.

      3. Updraft102

        And how many of those installations get wiped because the computer was purchased for the purpose of putting some other OS on it?

        I've done that three times this year so far. Windows 10 is just like all the other crapware that comes on there... off it goes!

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

      4. alain williams Silver badge

        Why need new hardware ?

        And how many of those installations get wiped because the computer was purchased for the purpose of putting some other OS on it?

        I have bought several laptops in the last couple of years: that is what happened to all of them, installed Linux Mint.**

        My main desktop I bought without an operating system in 2012. I installed CentOS. It is still going strong, had a few minor fixes like a new power supply. I'll upgrade the OS when CentOS 8 comes out.

        If I could buy cheap laptops without an OS I would do that as well.

        ** One one occasion I bought 2 identical ones at the same time. One I booted & installed Mint off a memory stick; the other I let it run the MS Windows first-time start-up. The Mint install completed long before MS Windows was ready.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @ ole juul

        Most corporate buyers are going to drop a "standard" image onto each new batch of machines if only to avoid having to sit watching the whole batch talk to MS, no telling if they are keeping WinX unless they are on the web

    2. Hollerithevo

      Not payment, just preferential thinking

      @Tchou, no one has to give Gartner money -- because they already have the mindset that will give the 'right' analysis. It's the same mindset that leads senior manager to choose capita or Oracle: they already 'know' that they need a big enterprise-level, super-prestige supplier to enhance their own importance, so their eyes go immediately to certain names. They aren't being forced or bribed to go for these big name, they just do, as people feel drinking a top-label bourbon or vodka somehow enhances their worth.

      (BTW, I am not saying that all liquor is the same: Plymouth gin is not on the same level as that sickly junk Bombay Sapphire, the bubblegum of gins, and this is Plymouth mark II I speak of, not even the original nectar.)

    3. a_yank_lurker

      @Tchou

      I would doubt Bloat10 had anything to do with the blip. It is reasonable to expect the quarterly shipments to bounce around an average in a fairly flat market. So if the PC market is about 250 million per year that is an average of 62.5 million per quarter. A percent or so change for a quarter is basically meaningless; what is meaningful is there is a long term trend over several quarters.

      The blip upward probably has more to do with other factors like a slightly larger number of refreshes done in the quarter as kit dies.

  3. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

    Gosh, how'd they know that? I only ordered it yesterday afternoon. Though it's got W10 on it, that's coming straight off - my client can't afford to have it unresponsive at the whim of its update cycle.

    1. Timmy B

      Re: PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

      "my client can't afford to have it unresponsive at the whim of its update cycle" - nether can we as a development house with dozens of PCs running Win 10. Funny that it's never been a problem for us.

      1. teknopaul

        Re: PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

        None of your team ever arrived late at a skype meeting because of a forced update?

        Never had to hang around for that "dont close your laptop now" message?

        Never had staff at their desks doing nothing while "critical updates" that didnt bother to ask you how critical your work is, decide for you, and install themsevles?

        Does your dev house do production support?

        I bet they keep thier PCs on all day and dont risk reboots. Unless there broken soundcard drivers demand it and then they do so with fingers crossed the bloody thing will come back up again before a call.

        Presumably you've never got on a plane and had Microsoft tell you not to turn your PC off while the air host/ess politely reminds you you are legally obliged to.

        Maybe your team sits at desks and it does not matter if they work or not?

        Thats not a common usecase.

        1. DAHISTRIMUS

          Re: PC shipments just rose, thanks to Windows 10

          maybe they use WSUS and have a proper update procedure.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So a 3 year old operating system has caused an increase in PC sales, well colour me surprised. I can't wait to see the increase in phone sales due to Android 6.

    1. midcapwarrior

      android

      Microsoft supports the OS for 10 years and your droid phone manufacturer supports the OS for maybe 2 years (maybe) so yeah that's a great comparison.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: android

        3 years, no maybe about it.

        https://www.blog.google/products/android-enterprise/android-enterprise-recommended-raising-the-bar-of-excellence-for-enterprise-mobility/

        And a mobile phone is very different cost and replacement cycle to a PC.

        How many 10 old mobile phones would there be out there to acctually support? 3 years is already pushing it, most users are on 24 month contracts and would have already moved onto something new.

      2. Jakester

        Re: android

        Microsoft does not support Windows 10 (put in your release version), they support each release for only 18 months (a new release is scheduled every 6 months). While each release is called Windows 10, it is a new OS and the feature upgrade performs a new install. Unfortunately, each new release tends to break programs that may have worked in a previous release. This is problematic when the application you are trying to run is an accounting program or database. Release 1803 broke our accounting program (frequent lockups), so we rolled back to release 1709. On one blog I read recently, the 1803 release also broke some SQL databases, which was finally resolved in late June. Fortunately, only one of the five accounting computers we use was running Windows 10, the others are still on Windows 7. It would be nice if Microsoft would make Windows 10 compatible with Windows 10 programs.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          Re: one of the five accounting computers

          I can see problems for certain accounts software which goes ahead and updates itself (and the data) because there's a new version. All client pc's have to be in lock-step otherwise a situation may arise where some pc's are unable to access the data. Should never occur of course if the developers are on the ball.

  5. Jason Hindle

    There are a lot of sub £200 Windows Tablets out there

    Made in China. It would be interesting to see what proportion of the growth in shipments comes from these.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PC shipments just rose, thanks to GDPR?

    Correlation is not causation. Win 10 Pro/Enterprise + TPM chip = Bitlocker to meet GDPR full disk encryption requirements on laptops containing personal data, perhaps...

  7. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Reports of PC death were greatly exaggerated

    Never trust a hippie an analyst.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe just people refreshing hardware which became really too old?

    Hardware upgrade cycles became longer, but that still mean one day you'll still need to refresh your hardware because it became really too old - and you may even be forced to accept Win10 on it if you're depending on OEM licenses instead of buying your own.

    1. jelabarre59

      Re: Maybe just people refreshing hardware which became really too old?

      Hardware upgrade cycles became longer, but that still mean one day you'll still need to refresh your hardware because it became really too old

      That was precisely *my* thought. Not just having to run newer applications, but sometimes the hardware just goes titsup just due to age/usage/abuse/etc. I know my own primary deskside machine barfed (HW, not SW) yesterday, so now I have to hunt down another used or hand-me-down machine to replace it. Maybe these folks replacing their older machines will send a couple my way. No problem with the OS, I'll wipe it and put Linux on it anyway. (if the in-laws' machine wasn't an all-in-one, I'd tell them it was time to upgrade)

  9. Andy00ff00

    by units sold?

    Apple in the top 5 by units sold?? Or by revenue?

    If they're in the top 5 by units sold, at those margins, .....

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: by units sold?

      Well, increased Apple sales may actually be "thanks to Windows 10"...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: by units sold?

      Yes #4 in worldwide units sold at nearly 4.4 million (3% increase from same quarter last year) and 7.1% market share.

      Apple collects nearly 90% of the smartphone market's total profit, so I'm kind of curious what that figure would be for PCs. HP and Dell may sell a lot (around 13.5 million each, 3x as many as Apple) but Apple's are mostly $1000+ while HP and Dell's are sold for far less. They aren't taking 90% of the PC market's profit I'm sure, but no doubt they get a helluva lot more than 7.1%.

      They make a ton of money selling Macs, but nobody talks about that anymore because it is a drop in the bucket compared to what they make selling iPhones. Heck, their Watch business alone is the size of a Fortune 300 company, which is to say around the size of Paypal or John Deere.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. VinceH

    "PC shipments just rose, thanks to in spite of Windows 10"

    FTFY!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Won't be buying until speculative execution bugs are fixed in the silicon and not band-aided.

    1. LawAbidingCitizen

      It makes zero difference anyway. All your data is belong to NSA.

      1. Twanky

        All your data is belong to NSA

        They would have no data on me if they hadn't got it from Experian/MS/Doubleclick whatever.

  12. DropBear
    Facepalm

    In a world where for some reason economists insist to define economic "sustainability" as endless growth, nothing will ever be "sustainable" for very long. Especially not things that don't show much predisposition for any growth these days at all.

    1. Moosh
      Boffin

      Its constantly increasing in scale and using more and more of our finite resources - this is incredibly sustainable!

  13. IsJustabloke

    I purchased a New PC this year...

    ... my first purchase PC since 2012! Having spent the last 6 years upgrading various bits and bobs.

    I know I'm in for an avalanche of down votes but I *really* haven't found win 10 to be all that bad.

    I've found it to be solid and reliable (exactly how I found win 7 to be before that). I do make use of "Shut up 10" but other than that it's been fine.

    I've had no crashes following updates and as someone that keeps their PC up to date anyway, I have no real problem with win 10 updating itself.

    Of course, I only really use it for running Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and it does both those with admirable reliability.

    While I accept everyone's experience will be different, for me there really isn't a problem with win 10.

    BTW.. I don't actually give a fuck about votes up or down so fill yer boots.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

      >I know I'm in for an avalanche of down votes but I *really* haven't found win 10 to be all that bad.

      Thanks for the input Bill and all the best with your foundation work.

      1. IsJustabloke
        WTF?

        Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

        "Thanks for the input Bill and all the best with your foundation work."

        what a bizarre response....

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

          >"Thanks for the input Bill and all the best with your foundation work." what a bizarre response....

          Are you Drax the Destroyer in disguise and have the complete inability to understand metaphors and implication ?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

      Windows 10 is an inconsistent, half-dumbed down piece of crap. Microsoft seem to have stopped testing their updates properly. On my father's PC (it had a fresh vanilla install) - after an update it has several times reset his document and picture folder shortcuts to the default C:/users location when these had specifically been moved to D:/xxxx. Very confusing for a 76 year old.

      1. IsJustabloke
        Meh

        Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

        "after an update it has several times reset his document and picture folder shortcuts to the default C:/users location when these had specifically been moved to D:/xxxx"

        can't say that I've experienced that but as I say I accept that others may have had a different experience to me.

        I'm sure you've considered this BUT on my PC the "users" folder presents as "C:\blah" but is physically located on "D:\blah"

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

          I'm glad that's the case for you. My personal win10 machine and VM are also stable and working fine, even while updating. However, a lot of people's aren't. I might suggest that our boxes are running better due to thorough management and knowledge of how windows works. However, the OS needs to be more stable than that for the person who doesn't know how windows functions or fails to do so, as they'll still be using a machine one way or another. Compared to other operating systems the person may have used, windows 10 has a lot of mechanisms for failing that a windows 7, XP*, older MacOS, or Linux user might not expect.

          *XP functionality is only expected from about 2003 through 2011. People still using it should expect a lot to go wrong.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: I purchased a New PC this year...

        Very confusing for a 76 year old.

        Nobody needs that sort of crap happening at the whim of the OS vendor.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      'I do make use of "Shut up 10" but other than that it's been fine'

      Bad assumptions! People posted their entire lives on Facebook for years and felt secure / deluded too. Wait till future updates kill your privacy defenses in a single update. It’s a false sense of security you're living under dude. This is the 'Surveillance-Economy 101' and Microsoft have made crystal clear promises to Wall Street. Who do you think is pushing for all of this! What makes you so special that you think you can escape it all???!

      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      Microsoft’s business models require stealing and reselling personal data

      ....."When we talk about why we're upgrading the Windows 10 install base, why is that upgrade free? MS CFO asked during a meeting with Wall Street analysts. These are all new monetization opportunities once a PC is sold. Microsoft's strategy is to go low on consumer Windows licenses, hoping that that will boost device sales, which will in turn add to the pool of potential customers for 'Advertising'".....

      ....."CEO Nadella has referred to the customer revenue potential as 'lifetime value' in the past -- and did so again last week during the same meeting with Wall Street -- hinting at Microsoft's strategy to make more on the back end of the PC acquisition process. The more customers, the more money those customers will bring in as they view 'Ads'".....

      https://www.computerworld.com/article/2917799/microsoft-windows/microsoft-fleshes-out-windows-as-a-service-revenue-strategy.html

  14. Anonymous Cowerd

    I bought mine despite Windows 10

    I bought a new PC this year and put a copy of Windows 7 on it, as I already had a licensed version of it.

    When my old PC attempted the free update from Win 7 to Win 10 (the OS said it would be fine and could cope with it) it bricked the machine, so I'm reluctant to let Win 10 anywhere near my lovely new hardware.

  15. Deckard_C

    Windows

    I think it’s more likely that windows 7 only has a year and a half before no more updates and takes big companies a long time to replace a large number of PCs and smaller ones who just OEM license don’t want to waste a money on just a win 10 license on an old PC when for the same amount your half way to a new PC.

    If I had the time I would of taken advantage off the free Win 10 upgrade and dual booted back to 7 until the updates stop.

    Although intel didn’t release the firmware updates for spectre to the Intel CPUs we’ve got in most of our PCs and the ones they did HP didn’t release BIOS updates for. MS only included the firmware updates in Win 10 updates not Win 7.

  16. Tikimon
    Devil

    Bass ackward interpretation

    " it appears that businesses are finally making the jump to Microsoft’s latest and buying new PCs to make it happen."

    WRONG. Try this: "It appears that businesses are finally buying new PCs which are all infected with Windows 10. "

  17. Mage Silver badge
    Flame

    More like despite Windows 10?

    Just think what shipments might be if Win 10 was what customers wanted, a better, secure, compatible and private version of NT, with best of NT3.5, XP & Win7?

    There is no proof whatsoever that it's because of Windows 10.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pity the poor lemmings.

    Microsoft, shitting on your doorstep since 1983.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PC Shipments just rose, thanks to Trump

    This rise has been caused by Trump:

    1. Trump's tax cuts went to the incurably rich and to corporates. This windfall has to be spent on stock buybacks to enrich the share holders, on increasing the CEO's bonus and on blowing the budgets, otherwise there might be something left over for the employees and corporates do not want to set a precedent by letting them have any of it. So buying all new PCs helps use up that surplus.

    2. Trump's tariffs will raise the prices of almost everything, especially that of things from China and of technology. Buy now to beat the rise. When the tariffs hit, next quarter, then the sales will plummet. As this will apply to many non-essentials, and working and middle class in the US have not had their incomes increase at all, then this will lead to the usual Republican fuelled recession.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: PC Shipments just rose, thanks to Trump

      "Trump's tariffs will raise the prices of almost everything, especially that of things from China and of technology. Buy now to beat the rise."

      That sounds like a plausible explanation when combined with the what's been said upthread; that there are a lot of ageing PCs out there that are approaching TITSUP time.

  20. IGnatius T Foobar ✅

    Gartner

    Gartner's normal game is to simply tell everyone that current trends will continue. PHB's pay them a lot of money to do that so that if the prediction is wrong, it isn't the PHB's neck on the line. This model has satisfied everyone involved for decades, and it works well -- but it isn't a good indicator of what to expect in the industry next.

    You have to understand why these firms exist. They don't provide "analysis" for our entertainment.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Gartner

      They don't provide "analysis" for our entertainment.

      They do, even if they don't intend that.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fortnite sole explanation for 1% rise in PC sales

    Any rise this year in PC sales is attributed to the biggest game in the world that plays best from PC - Fortnite.

  22. LawAbidingCitizen

    Kubuntu 18.04 - FOR THE WIN!

    I own three ThinkPads - a T450s, a T470, and a T470p. All of them are running Kubuntu 18.04. Couldn't be happier. I'm not bad-mouthing Windows 10, it's probably okay, but I do know it shamefully sucks up as much data as possible and sends that data to Microsoft servers - all in the name of make "Cortana" smarter (so Cortana can "...really get the know you!...").

    When I bought my T470, I had to (to my horror) had to install Windows 10 because I needed to update the "Intel chipset" firmware. This was painful. Extremely painful. The installation too over 5 hours (from a USB stick) before the T470 could actually be used. Once the firmware was upgraded, I installed Kubuntu 18.04 - that took a total of 17 minutes.

    Anyway, each to their own. I'm sure Windows 10 has many positive points, but it's not for me. I can do everything I need to do on Linux (some CUDA coding, games development using UE4, and a ton of Java coding).

    I'm also still a sucker for wobbly windows :) Check out Andy Turfer's videos on YouTube - they're one of the reasons why I switched to Linux full-time.

    1. Curt Vile

      Re: Kubuntu 18.04 - FOR THE WIN!

      Took me 45 mins to do a clean install of Windows 10, so Christ knows what your problem is/was.

    2. Smoking Man

      Re: Kubuntu 18.04 - FOR THE WIN!

      Sounds almost like you need three machines with Kubuntu to do the work that could be done with a single Windows 10 machine.

      Welcome to 2018, the year of Linux on the desktop.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Kubuntu 18.04 - FOR THE WIN!

        "Welcome to 2018, the year of Linux on the desktop."

        Just like more years than I can remember before it.

        You do, however, seem to lack the notion of multiple users or purposes. SWMBO & self are both using our Linux laptops at present. Then there's a smaller Linux laptop for when I need something really portable to take into libraries etc. There are also the Linux Pis, one on each TV to make them into non-slurping smart TVs. And the Linux desktop that's actually a desktop not a laptop for stuff that needs a Wacom tablet....

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You can be certain...

    ...that the increase in PC sales had absolutely nothing to do with Win10 as many consumers are avoiding Win10 like the plague. Many PC suppliers have opted to offering Win7 or no OS as options to the detested Win10 known for it's spying, encrypted data reporting to Microsoft and GPS tracking along with noted security flaws and code defects that have required multiple updates to repair the updates to repair the former updates. The inability to deactivate Win10 updates is also illegal in many locales as is the Microsoft forced updates to Win10 by those private and commercial entities desiring to not move from Win 7-8 to Win10.

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