Worldwide device shipments fall by 3 percent

Worldwide shipments for devices including PCs, tablets, smartphones and mobile phones, are expected to decline three percent this year, according to a new report by market analysts Gartner. The company says this will be the second consecutive year of decline, as the global devices market fell by 0.75 percent in 2015. "The global devices market is not on pace to return to single-digit growth soon", says Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

"Growth is on pace to remain flat during the next five years. All segments are expected to decline in 2016, except for premium ultramobiles and utility mobile phones (entry level phones), which are expected to show single-digit growth this year", says Gartner.

"We expect premium ultramobiles will start benefiting from the collective performance and integration of the latest Intel CPU platform and Windows 10", adds Atwal.

There will be an eight percent decline in the PC market this year. The installed base will "bottom out", and the replacement cycles will almost freeze. In Western Europe, Euro depreciated "significantly" last year, which sent PC prices up.

According to Mr Atwal, vendors will combat it in multiple ways, including "de-featuring" devices to keep the costs down. Total shipments for mobile phones is also expected to go down 1.6 percent this year. The smartphone segment will grow, but growth is slowing down.

"This is no surprise; the smartphone market is maturing, and reaching global saturation with phones that are increasingly capable and remain good enough for longer", says Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. Gartner’s full report can be found on this link.

The table above shows shipments in millions of units. The premium ultramobiles include devices like Apple's MacBook Air and Microsoft's Surface.

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