After a decline of 3% in 2017, worldwide shipments of devices — PCs, tablets and mobile phones — are forecast to return to growth (+1.3%) in 2018 and will total 2.3 billion units, according to Gartner, Inc. (www.gartner.com).
While the performance of shipments of devices fluctuate year over year, end-user device spending continues to rise and is forecast to increase 7% in 2018, adds there research group.
“Driven by better specifications despite increasing costs ASPs for devices rose by 9.1% in 2017, and this trend will continue through this year, where we expect prices will increase by 5.6 percent,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.
Despite PC prices increasing 4.6% in 2018, PC market unit demand, driven by business buying, is stabilizing through 2018 The traditional PC market will decline 3.9% in units in 2018, and is expected to decline a further 3.6% during 2019.
