PC Growth Projected To Be Just 2% for 2013

While some researchers have predicted that the growth rate of PC market will be as much as 9% in 2013, Stern Agee has predicted it to be just 2%. Although the year 2012 was a quiet one for Microsoft as compared to Apple and Samsung, the year 2013 will see Microsoft brought back into the news for better or for worse. The main reasons behind the prediction are the feedback from supply chain sources, the low prices for Apple’s iPad, and the largely hostile consumer response to Windows 8.

In a world where smartphones and tablets are quickly taking over several aspects of the consumers’ lives, PC use is gradually being reduced for specialized tasks. You can check your email on-the-go using your iPhone, can perform a variety of tasks on your iPad, and can satisfy all your PDF reading urges through your tablet.

Although Microsoft has also secured a respectable place in the Smartphone and Tablet industry, it is not the market leader. Stern Agee predicts that PC use will be increasingly reduced to specialized tasks, and therefore it will face a low growth rate in 2013. Another interesting observation from the same source is that the market for Windows 7 will increase at a faster rate as some people switch over from Windows XP to Windows 7.

The predictions are based on data collected from supply chain sources and speculations; however, we should know better than to rule out PC just on the basis of Windows 8 and just because Apple has lower priced iPads. There are advocates of Windows 8 out there, and some of the previous operating systems from Microsoft have received equal if not greater amount of hostility from consumers in the past. However, Microsoft continues to be the top dog in the IT industry.

Are iPads actually replacing PCs? Will Tablets ever be able to do all the things a PC can do? This remains to be seen, for now; we shall wait and see if these predictions come true as 2013 progresses.

[Images via appleinsider & hardwarepal]