According to Gartner Inc. the PC industry is set to face its biggest decline in history, with shipments totalling 257 million units in 2009, an 11.9 per cent decline from the previous year.

Previously the worst decline witnessed by the industry was in 2001 when unit shipments fell 3.2 per cent.

George Shiffler, research director at Gartner commented that this sharp decrease is due to the challenging worldwide economic conditions.

“The PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC suppliers grow increasingly cautious,” he said.

The key issue that is set to hit the industry is the reduction in the replacement market, which account for around 80 per cent of all shipments. According to Shiffler, people will keep extending the lifespan of their PCs and be unwilling to upgrade until confidence in the economy is returned.

But on closer inspection of these findings, the industry’s future may not be as dire as initially thought.

The reason for this is that both the Mobile PC and Mini-notebook categories both demonstrated significant growth over the period, the only reason the category saw such a dramatic decrease is due to the Desk-based PC shipments which suffered drastically amidst the growing popularity of portable PC devices on the market.

The Mobile PC category expects shipments to reach 155.6 million units, a 9 per cent increase from 2008. The Mini-notebook category is also forecasting a growth with expected shipments to reach 21 million in 2009, compared to 11.7 million units for 2008.

Gartner has commented that the Mini-notebook category will help cushion the overall slowdown of the market, but they only represent 8 per cent of the total market and therefore can’t significantly change the whole category.

The one area which has hit the PC category the hardest and represents the biggest decline is desk-based units, which saw a fall of 31.9 per cent to 101.4 million units.

So it seems consumers are definitely turning away from the traditional desk-based PC and are instead focussing their attention on the more portable options available.