PC shipments 'stable' in the third quarter, according to IDC

More powerful CPUs from AMD and Intel fuelling interest in new PCs

Third quarter PC shipments were stable, according to IDC, following a year of new developments and launches in desktop CPUs.

In its Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, IDC announced worldwide shipments of traditional PCs, which includes desktops, notebooks, workstations, totalled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2017.

While this translates into a slight year-over-year decline of 0.5 per cent, IDC said the results were better than projections of a 1.4 per cent decline, demonstrating the trend of "market stabilisation" in recent quarters, aided by the improvement in emerging markets as well as back-to-school promotions helped boost results, the analysts said.

This was especially evident in Europe, where the traditional PC market continued to show signs of progress towards stabilisation for another quarter, IDC said.

"With customers increasingly adopting a mobility mindset, notebooks were undoubtedly the drivers for the EMEA PC market. Although desktops continued to erode, growing interest in gaming contributed towards keeping the desktop market afloat," the analysts stated.

However, in the US the traditional PC market experienced a fresh decline in shipments with a notable drop in notebook sales. This was due to a continuing pressure from other mobile devices along with inventory management contributed to a drop in notebook shipments, IDC said. Saying that, desktop devices still performed better than forecasted.

"The traditional PC market performed much as expected in the third quarter," said Loren Loverde, program vice president of IDC's Worldwide PCD Trackers. "Emerging markets rebounded slightly more than anticipated, but overall results reflect the stabilisation we expected following component and inventory adjustments."

In terms of outlook for the fourth quarter, IDC is remaining cautious, but expect to see a small decline in volume for the last quarter and the year.

"The gains in emerging regions and potential for more commercial replacements represent some upside potential, although we continue to expect incremental declines in total shipments for the next few years," Loverde added.