By David Nagel, Campus Technology
The worldwide PC market saw a worse-than-expected decline in the fourth quarter, leading to the first holiday season drop in five years–6.4 percent–and a 12-month decline of 3.2 percent. The United States in particular experienced a more mild decline, but saw an even deeper drop of 7 percent for the year as a whole, according to preliminary data released by market research firm IDC. According to IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, PC shipments worldwide dropped 6.4 percent to 89.8 million units (compared to 99.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2011). IDC’s previous forecast called for a more modest decline of 4.4 percent. The steeper drop was owing in part to the failure of Windows 8 to help bolster the market as PC’s (desktops, laptops, sub-laptops, and workstations) “continued to take a back seat to competing devices,” in particular tablets and smart phones.
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