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PCSalesFeature

The concluding few years haven't been kind to the PC manufacture. From a loftier of 365 million devices shipped in 2011, the manufacture has contracted to just 263 million units shipped (estimated) for 2017. That's more than than a 25 percentage drop, and it's had a serious touch on multiple companies, from HP's decision to split its consumer and enterprise product divisions, to Dell'south decision to get private several years ago. After half-dozen straight years of declines, Gartner is predicting a small recovery, though 2019's estimated sales will still be lower than 2016.

This recovery will be principally driven by significant growth in what Gartner calls the premium ultramobile space, every bit traditional laptop and desktop sales are expected to decline from 220 million units in 2016 to 188 million units in 2019. The latter decline reflects what we've previously predicted: As conventional desktop and laptop systems live for longer periods of time, customers supercede them less quickly. Workstations and gaming PCs have shown some signs of growth over the last few years. But these are high-end, boutique systems by definition, and total growth in that space doesn't offset the general decline of the desktop and laptop market on the whole.

Tabular array ane, shown beneath, breaks downwardly the categories and expected growth or decline rates.

Table1-Gartner

Nosotros reached out to Gartner for clarification on device categories and were told that premium ultramobile devices are the loftier-end ultrabooks and ii-in-1 designs with starting prices at or above $i,000. These systems use Intel Cadre processors–AMD may brand a play for some of them with its upcoming Raven Ridge, merely that'southward yet to be adamant–and characteristic SSDs and support a wide range of scenarios that require high system functioning (content cosmos, video editing, transcoding, etc). Shipments in this category are expected to jump from 50 million units in 2016 to 81 1000000 units in 2019.

Bones and utility ultramobiles, according to Gartner, is a less-specific grouping of products focused primarily on content consumption. This would include the depression-price ultraportables based on Cantlet (Goldmont), but also covers Android tablets, non-Pro iPads, Windows RT (when information technology was applicable), and Chromebooks. Growth here is expected to be negative or flat, though we don't know which specific products will change. Gains in Chromebook shipments, for instance, could be offset by a decline in Cantlet sales or iPad sales.

The 0.8 percent projected growth for PC shipments in 2018 comes courtesy of a business refresh prediction and new support from the Chinese regime. Windows 10 deployments have been delayed in that country due to security concerns, but Microsoft is working on a version of the Bone that will laissez passer muster with Communist china. Ranjit Atwal, research manager at Gartner, believes improved sales in Russia volition also boost the overall market.

"The features of Windows 10 could be specially useful for the Chinese Government that is looking to move from desktops and notebooks to ultramobile premium devices," Atwal said. "Nosotros expect this development to positively bear upon the PC market in 2018."