According to IDC, less numbers of PCs have been shipped in this year and if it is going to remain the same for the entire year, it is going to be quite bad for Microsoft’s Windows 8 OS. The main reason that has caused decreased sells of desktop PCs is mainly because of the recently popularity that much portable devices like smartphones, phablets, and tablets have received.

Still many tech analysts feel that even though the sales of tablets and smartphones have increased considerably, the traditional desktops and laptops will continue to hold a place in the market. Earlier this year, IDC had predicted that the sales of desktops and laptops would increase in the second of the year but sadly it hasn’t been the way they forecasted. However, IDC feels that PC sales will continue to plummet in the coming year.

According to the analysis done by IDC, the shipments of PC will go down by 7.8 percent this year and it is going to drop 1.2 percent in the next year. IDC also predicts that in 2017, the shipment of PCs would be around 333 million which is less than 349 million shipments done in 2012 and 363 million in 2011.

The fall in PC sales is going to severely affect Windows 8. The new Windows 8 has actually failed to boost the sales of desktops and laptops. Hence, some IDC analysts have gone to the extent of blaming the poor reception of Windows 8 for the consistent fall of the PC industry. While other analysts feel Windows 8 is just one of the factors that have caused such a situation.

Microsoft is on the verge of releasing a new update for Windows 8, the Windows 8.1 update. It is going to bring some important features to the operating system. If Windows 8 is sole cause for the poor sales of PCs which is not likely, the new update should not help in delivering the best user experience to the users but also it should help in improving the sales of PCs.

These days’ people prefer to make use of portable devices like tablets or smartphones to do all kinds of work that they would have otherwise done on a desktop PC. Smartphones allow users to send emails, snap photos, listen to songs, work, use social networking sites, access the web and what not and this becomes one of the reasons why such people may not be interested in buying a desktop.

As we said before, the PC market will never die even though the sales will continue to go down.  Well, the market for desktops will continue to survive as PCs are required for home users and also in the corporate world.

Recently, various brands like HP and Lenovo released all-in-one desktops but even that has not managed to improve the sales of PCs. The Windows 8.1 appears to be very promising. It is definitely going to increase the sales of PCs and other devices on which Windows 8.1 OS will run. We hope that in the near future other operating systems like Linux also contributes in increasing the sales of the PC.