November 21, 2013

11% Average Growth Forecast for Total Personal Computing Systems

Strong growth from Internet/cloud-centric systems and tablets; standard PC units to decline.

The 2014 edition of IC Insights’ IC Market Drivers report will be released at the end of November.  The Personal Computer and Tablet market is one of the key topics included in the new report.

IC Insights forecasts total personal computing unit shipments (desktop PCs, notebooks, tablets, and Internet/cloud portables) to grow an average of 10.6% from 2012 to 2017, reaching 770 million systems at the end of the forecast period, according to data in the soon-to-be-released IC Market Drivers 2014 report (Figure 1).  Total personal computing systems will increase an estimated 12.0% to 522 million systems worldwide in 2013, compared to 466 million units in 2012.

Figure 1

Splitting out the data, combined shipments of desktop and notebook computers (standard PCs) are expected to fall 8.7% to an estimated 315 million in 2013, which represents the biggest one-year decline ever for PCs.   Previously, the largest annual decline in PC unit shipments was a 4.3% drop in the 2001 industry recession.  PC-only shipments are expected to increase 2% in 2014 to 322 million units as more consumers and businesses decide they can no longer postpone purchases of new notebooks and desktop computers to replace their existing personal computers.

Meanwhile, demand for tablets has sizzled throughout 2013.  The new IC Market Drivers report shows that unit shipments of tablet PCs will climb 73% in 2013 to an estimated 202 million systems worldwide compared to 117 million in 2012.  In addition, the small market niche of Internet/cloud-computing laptops—primarily designed for online use and often needing to be connected to websites to be fully functional—is expected to increase 42% in 2013 to an estimated 5.1 million systems from 3.6 million in 2012.

From 2012-2017, shipments of standard PCs are expected to fall by a CAGR of -0.3% to 340 million in 2017 compared to 345 million in 2012.  Tablet shipments are projected to rise by a CAGR of 28.8% in the forecast period, reaching 415 million units in 2017 and Internet/cloud-computing laptops are projected to rise by CAGR of 32.1% and reach 15 million units in 2017.

The IC Market Drivers report shows that China will again capture the largest marketshare for personal computing systems, accounting for an estimated 18% unit marketshare.  The U.S. (17%), Europe (15%), and Japan (5%), are other significant markets.

Report Details:  IC Market Drivers 2014

IC Market Drivers 2014—A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits examines the largest, existing system opportunities for ICs and evaluates the potential for new applications that are expected to help fuel the market for ICs.

IC Market Drivers is divided into two parts.  Part 1 provides a detailed forecast of the IC industry by system type, by region, and by IC product type through 2017.  In Part 2, the IC Market Drivers report examines and evaluates key existing and emerging end-use applications that will support and propel the IC industry through 2017.  Some of these applications include automotive electronics, smartphones, personal/mobile computing, servers and cloud computing, wireless networks, medical/health electronics, and a review of many applications to watch—systems and markets such as like the Internet of Things (IoT) that may provide significant opportunity for IC suppliers later this decade. The IC Market Drivers 2014 report is priced at $3,290 for an individual-user license and $6,390 for a multi-user corporate license.  It is set for release in November 2013.