Workstations on the Rise Amid PC Slump
Despite a sluggish overall PC market, high-end workstations are continuing to experience growth in 2013. In the second quarter, according to a new report from Jon Peddie Research, manufacturers shipped 940,000 units worldwide, an increase of 6.4 percent over the same period last year.
As JPR pointed out, the growth is not merely continued recovery from the past downturn. Workstations have caught up to their pre-recession levels and surpassed them.
"In Q2'13, the workstation market experienced its best results in two years. And viewing in the context of overall economic conditions, the firm sees it as the best in five years," JPR reported. "The market's growth numbers for a few quarters in 2010 and 2011 were higher, but consider the relative conditions of the time. At that time, all markets were rebounding from a severe downturn. Those robust results had the benefit of accelerating from the bounce off the deep bottom, making higher growth numbers easier to attain. But flash forward to 2013, when the market has already caught up to — and passed — market highs from 2008. There's no more "rebound" growth left to take, making Q2'13 gains more significant."
In the same period, the overall PC market declined by 10.9 percent. "The mainstream PC market continues to feel the negative effects of users shifting preferences (e.g. tablets and smartphones)," JPR pointed out. "But workstations for professional computing don't see the same threat from such devices that PCs for consumer or office work do."
For the quarter, HP wound up with a 41.2 percent of the workstation market in the second quarter, with Dell coming in at 32 percent, according to JPR.