PC Sales: Expert Estimates Do not Agree. A Surprise?
January 26, 2015
Numbers are supposed to be cold, hard facts that prove the truth without a doubt. While numbers can be fudged, they can also be interpreted in different ways. Neowin tells us that two respected market research companies are arguing over a specific number sets. Read the article, “Gartner Reports PC Shipments Went Up In Q4, But IDC Says Otherwise.”
PC’s have faced steep competition in the past few years with people switching over to the Apple camp, tablets becoming more prevalent, and a small percentage building their own machines. PC’s still remain a huge staple in the computer market, but sales are declining.
Gartner says 83.7 million PC units were sold, while IDC says 80.8 million units were sold. IDC does agree with Gartner that the fourth quarter saw a rise in sales, but there was a 2.4% decrease in sales compared in 2013 numbers.
The reason for the difference in numbers relates to how the market research firms gather their information:
“The different results reported by IDC are easy to explain since the two research firms have different ways to define what constitutes a PC. IDC for example doesn’t count Windows tablet/hybrids such as the Surface Pro 3 but includes Chromebooks, while Gartner excludes any portables other than Windows tablets.”
It is not a surprise that number experts cannot agree on the numbers, especially when they are pulling data from different sources. This means both are right and both are wrong at the same time. The numbers do not lie, but the humans interpreting the data can read it wrong.
Whitney Grace, January 26, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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