That headline is an unfair exaggeration, but the bleeding in the PC industry has barely begun:
After the steep losses in the disastrous first quarter, IDC now predicts PC shipments to drop a whopping 7.8 percent in 2013—nearly twice the rate of 2012’s 4 percent decline, which already had the industry in a tizzy. Dell’s on the block, Lenovo’s pushing into smartphones despite its computing wins, and HP’s first quarter PC revenues dropped a whopping 20 percent.
The pain isn’t expected to stop there, either. IDC predicts shipments to drop another 1.4 percent in 2014 before settling down again. By 2017, the firm expects global PC shipments to total roughly 333 million units—more than the 321.9 million forecasted to move this year, but less than 2012’s 349.2 million and 2011’s 363 million. (To be fair, judging the market that far out is about as accurate as reading chicken entrails; witness how quickly this year’s 1.3 percent decline blossomed to a full 7.8 percent plummet.)
IDC says tablets and workplace BYOD laptops are largely to blame, two areas where Apple tends to shine.
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