According to IHS PC Dynamics Market Brief Q2 2013 is the worst 2nd quarter (on a Q-o-Q basis) for the WW mobile PC market in 11 years-- shipments drop by -6.9% Q-o-Q, while H1 2013 sees the worst performance since 2003.
In the past 10 years the global mobile PC market always saw Q-o-Q shipment recovery ranging from 0.5% to as much as 6.5% during Q2.
The analyst also says H1 2013 shipments are down by -11.2% compared to H2 2012. In contrast, mobile PC shipments had surged by a spectacular 41.7% during H1 2010.
“The mobile PC industry on the whole is struggling to find any momentum for growth as upheavals rock the market,” IHS says. “In particular, more nimble devices like tablets have taken over among consumers given their ease of use and unique form factor. Meanwhile, innovation in PCs has stagnated, and the recent influx of low-cost tablets has further eaten into an already decimated mobile PC space. With such dire numbers, many are wondering whether this signifies the start of more record declines for mobile PCs, or if the industry has hit rock-bottom.”
IHS still has hopes for the market-- lower-cost, high performance PCs powered with the latest AMD (Temash) and Intel (Bay Trail) processors might "save the market," through powerful yet affordable ultrabooks.
Hopes also exist for consumers (finally) getting used to Windows 8, and a PC refresh buying cycle should also take place sometime soon.
"Despite the broad appeal of media tablets, the devices won’t be able to fully replace PCs, and consumers will continue to need the computational power of PCs,” the analyst continues. “If a new low-cost PC offering strong performance can become available on the market and meet consumer expectations, then PCs could be set for more growth-— not like the glory days of the 2000s—- but growth nonetheless."
However, despite such hopes, 2013 is likely to be marked in the annals of the PC market as annus orribilis-- the second consecutive year of decline following 2012, the first PC contraction since 2001.
Go Mobile PC Market Suffers Worst Q2 Performance in More Than a Decade (IHS)