- Dec 30, 2012
- 4,809
One of the widely discussed trends of the past few years has been the decline in PC sales and the rise in tablet sales. Tablets, more than smartphones, are credited with harming the US market — few people view a smartphone, even a highly capable device, as a complete desktop or laptop replacement.
Because so much of the discussion has been tablet- and US-centric, we’ve missed the impact that tablet and smartphone sales have had on the worldwide electronics market. Now that information has been combined and visualized for the first time, and while the data points aren’t ironclad (we’re drawing from a single source for this information), some of the trends are stark.
Some of these data points are so strong that they seem inaccurate — according to the chart, India’s PC usage has fallen to just 10% before rebounding slightly this year. In fact, we suspect there are anomalies in the data — if the Indian information were accurate, it would mean that PC usage had declined sharply (from 40% to just a little over 10%) while mobile use only increased from perhaps 13% to 22% over the same period. Since it’s unlikely thattotal internet use has declined so steeply, this suggests flaws in the data set.
Nonetheless, Gartner Research does back up the idea that the Indian PC market is in sharp decline: In Q1 2014, sales in the Indian market had fallen to 70% of their Q1 2013 level, while smartphone sales for the same period had more than doubled. Sales data isn’t the same as internet usage information, but the trends do point in the same direction — sharply rising sales of smartphones as conventional PCs drop.
Even in nations where PC usage hasn’t declined, it’s mostly stopped increasing. Mobile usage has grown dramatically almost everywhere, while the PC remains flat.
Because so much of the discussion has been tablet- and US-centric, we’ve missed the impact that tablet and smartphone sales have had on the worldwide electronics market. Now that information has been combined and visualized for the first time, and while the data points aren’t ironclad (we’re drawing from a single source for this information), some of the trends are stark.
Some of these data points are so strong that they seem inaccurate — according to the chart, India’s PC usage has fallen to just 10% before rebounding slightly this year. In fact, we suspect there are anomalies in the data — if the Indian information were accurate, it would mean that PC usage had declined sharply (from 40% to just a little over 10%) while mobile use only increased from perhaps 13% to 22% over the same period. Since it’s unlikely thattotal internet use has declined so steeply, this suggests flaws in the data set.
Nonetheless, Gartner Research does back up the idea that the Indian PC market is in sharp decline: In Q1 2014, sales in the Indian market had fallen to 70% of their Q1 2013 level, while smartphone sales for the same period had more than doubled. Sales data isn’t the same as internet usage information, but the trends do point in the same direction — sharply rising sales of smartphones as conventional PCs drop.
Even in nations where PC usage hasn’t declined, it’s mostly stopped increasing. Mobile usage has grown dramatically almost everywhere, while the PC remains flat.
