Analysts: Steep decline in PC shipments still expected for H1

Last year, leading analysts including IDC gave the PC industry a baseline number on which to base its growth projections. That number, at about this time last year, ironed itself out to about 12%. By the spring, it looked like the real number would be 15%. But projections like these almost always presume that the same factors that impact the industry in the current quarter, will be carried on into the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.

As we all know now, the tremendous decline in both business and consumer orders resulted in 2008 ending up pretty much where it began, almost as if there wasn't a year's worth of data at all: flat for the year after a shipment decline of more than 11% in just the fourth quarter.

This morning, IDC presented the baseline with which analysts for the rest of the year will base their indications of decline or recovery: A 4.5% decline in PC unit shipments across the board is now anticipated in 2009. That assumes a bit of a recovery in the latter half of the year after a rate of decline of 8% annually in the first half. So if first-quarter numbers (which we'll probably see in early May, given how analysts will want to correct and fine-tune them) come in at minus 8%, that could be good news because the industry will at least have been prepared for it.

Given analysts' typical tendency to project the current baseline well into the foreseeable future, IDC this morning actually went so far as to explain to its business clients that it's not using linear projections for this year's formulas: "Although we've seen some dramatic declines in component shipments, a significant portion of that will be due to clearing of inventory, particularly because the crisis hit in the fourth quarter when inventory was at its peak," wrote the firm, on behalf of IDC's Quarterly PC Tracker. "We should not look at the drop in component shipments and annualize it, assuming that the trend will continue. Instead, we should see an initial shock to component growth followed by more careful orders as businesses get a handle on inventory and demand in the new environment. As such, the 11% drop in PC processor shipments during Q4 should be more substantial than the impact to actual PC shipments will be over several quarters."