Yet another tough quarter for the PC as the UK market fared the worst in Western Europe according to Gartner. The quarter saw 2.3 million PCs chipped in the UK that was down a staggering 21.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2012. With 11 of the last 12 quarters showing decline once more we must ask ourselves is the righting on the wall for the PC? The mobile marketplace has once again given the traditional desktop a hiding with 62 per cent of the total UK shipments being mobile devices.

Experts were not predicting much Christmas spirit for the fourth quarter as they were unsurprisingly expecting yet another quarter of decline. The downturn for the PC market was worse in the UK then in France or Germany – an area surely of concern for many in the UK sales channel. Western Europe as a whole didn’t escape from the decline however with nearly 13 per cent less shipped compared to the previous year’s quarter.

Lenovo was the only major manufacture to see any form of annual growth with shipments jumping a staggering 26 per cent. With market leading HP and runner up Dell both seeing decline of 9 & 4 per cent respectively questions must surely be being asked by their management team as to how Lenovo was able to generate this growth.

The transition from PC to tablet continues to hit the industry hard. The shift in focus to new and forthcoming new products also meant that many vendors where managing their stock levels and focused on clearing what they had into the distribution channel as they were careful to avoid being left with redundant equipment.

With the death of the desktop PC creeping ever closer over the horizon how will this affect IT sales and the recruitment of staff? For the next few years maybe nothing at all but eventually more companies may be forced to focus on other revenue streams. The facts are clear through – more and more people are turning towards portable devices – The ever growing sales being touted on various websites is living proof – as the technology has improved to such a point that you can get all of your information and create documents, play games and stay in touch with your friends from a tablet or phone why would you want to spend hundreds of pounds on a piece of technology that you can’t take more than a few feet from a plug socket…