According to early results from IDC, consumer interest in the traditional PC is once again picking up. The market research firm found global PC shipments only dropped 1.7 percent year-over-year during the second quarter, from 75.7 million to 74.4 million. Yes, it's still a drop but it's also the smallest decline since the second quarter of 2012.
So, what's going on exactly?
We recently learned that tablet growth is slowing down as market saturation and other contributing factors set in. Consumers, however, aren't showing signs of spending less which means some of that money is now being used to buy PCs.
Of course, that's only a fraction of the equation. We must also consider the fact that Microsoft ended support for Windows XP back in April. Instead of paying extra for extended support, many businesses are seeing it as a prime time to buy new hardware with either Windows 7 or a Windows 8 variant pre-installed.
IDC analyst Jay Chou pointed out another contributing factor - low-end system sales. In an odd bit of irony, budget machines like Chromebooks now appear to be cannibalizing tablet sales.
While the improvements are welcomed for PC makers, IDC said they don't yet see enough evidence to raise the long-term outlook for this year. If nothing else, however, growth could get closer to being flat versus earlier projections of a six percent decline.
Are you planning to purchase a new desktop or notebook PC this year?