Large enterprises will cut their PC purchases by 20 percent in 2015, due to increase in prices, said Gartner. Small businesses will behave like value-driven consumers and look to purchase consumer PCs this year.
Large businesses will prioritize other IT budgets with currency-driven shortfalls, such as those for software and services, for which they will draw money from the PC budget. Large enterprises will look to lengthen their PC lifetimes by six months (10 percent) in comparison with 2014, rather than buying less expensive models or removing requirements for key features.
Prices of PCs are expected to increase up to 10 percent in 2015, said Gartner.
The Gartner report said device vendors will have to raise the prices of PCs to offset the effects of currency devaluation. Prices of PCs in the Eurozone and Japan, in particular, will increase by up to 10 percent during 2015.
“We are currently seeing the sharp appreciation of the dollar against most other currencies reflected in companies’ earnings results,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. “PC vendors selling to Europe and Japan, where local currencies have fallen up to 20 percent since the start of 2015, have little choice than to raise prices to preserve profits.”
End-user spending in constant dollars in Western Europe will increase 4 percent to $116 billion in 2015.
Device vendors will mitigate the impact of their declining “dollarized” profits by taking advantage of single-digit-percentage decreases in PC component costs during 2015, and by selling PCs with fewer features to keep prices down.
Through 2016, 30 percent of PC consumers will buy down the price curve. Consumers of PCs priced at less than $500 will purchase less expensive PCs with lower specifications to counter price rises. This segment is expected to be 30 percent of the market.
Consumers of PCs priced at $500 to $800 will delay purchases due to rising prices. This segment is expected to be 40 percent of the market.
Consumers of PCs priced at over $800 will extend lifetimes by 10 percent to compensate for higher prices, and absorb remaining price increases. This segment is expected to be 30 percent of the market.
editor@infotechlead.com
