In 2010, the semiconductor spending crown belonged to Hewlett-Packard, more than logical considering HP is the world's largest PC manufacturer. But in 2011, it was Apple that took the No. 1 spot by spending nearly $17.3 billion on semiconductors, up a whopping 34.6 percent over what it spent in 2010 and enough to grab hold of 5.7 percent of the total semiconductor market, according to data released by market research firm Gartner.
According to Gartner's preliminary figures, worldwide semiconductor revenue grew just 0.9 percent from 2010, topping out at $302 billion in 2011. After a strong start to the year, the semiconductor market was on pace to grow at a greater clip than less than 1 percent, but then buyers worried about the strength of the economy started to cut back orders for equipment and semiconductors, Gartner says.
The sky isn't falling or anything like that, but worldwide semiconductor spending won't be quite as high as previously thought, according to market research firm Gartner. The psychic bean counters at Gartner now believe semiconductor spending in 2012 will reach $309 billion worldwide, a 2.2 percent increase from 2011, but down from Gartner's previous forecast of 4.6 percent growth.
It may have once seemed inconceivable that Google's Android platform could not only catch up with iOS, but surpass it, however now it seems equally unlikely that iPhones will ever again outnumber Android smartphones. To wit, Android smartphones now lead iOS smartphones (iPhone devices) by a measure of more than three-to-one, according to data provided by market research firm Gartner.
As PC users, we're so used to hearing sirens warn that the sky is falling we barely notice the noise anymore. Part of the reason for that is because even when things are bad, they're still pretty good. That's again the case today as market research firm Gartner lowers its PC shipments forecast for 2011, but a closer examination of the numbers shows there's reason to remain confident in the state of PCs.
Even though Windows 7 rocks the socks off the decade-old XP and the lackluster ball of consumer disappointment known as Vista, Microsoft has had a hard time convincing PC users to make the switch to their new (well, two years old) operating system. When 2011 first rolled around, less than one in ten North American PCs rocked Redmond's latest offering. Expect that number to look a whole lot different by New Year's; one leading analytical firm says Windows 7 will be the most common OS in the world by the time 2012 rears its ugly head.
If you're not rocking a solid state drive in your system, it's probably because of price, are we right? And specifically, the cost per gigabyte can be hard to swallow when mechanical hard drives offer such a superior value, at least in terms of what you're paying. SSDs have a long way to go before they catch up to HDDs, but maybe they don't have to. Maybe SSDs just need to offer a better value before the mainstream market dives in en masse.
The sky isn't falling, the world isn't about to end, and PCs aren't dying. Why, then, is market research firm Gartner bugging out? Call it an overreaction or a temporary blip as tablets settle into the marketplace (or a little of both), but according to Gartner, worldwide PC shipments totaled 84.3 million units in the first quarter of 2011, a 1.1 percent slip from the same period one year ago. Doesn't sound like much, but Gartner says the shipment results are indicative of a potential sluggishness, not just a normal seasonal dip.
Research firm Gartner fanned the flames of anti-PC fanboism by essentially declaring that mobile PCs are dead. To be fair, Gartner didn't actually say as much in so many words, but it sure did paint a pretty grim picture for the future of notebooks and netbooks, which Gartner predicts will have a tough time competing with tablets. Listening to Gartner, you'd think that by this time next year, we're all going to be a bunch of iPad and iPhone toting hipsters too cool for for PCs. More blasphemy after the break.
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