After enduring an
overall decline of 16.4 percent
during the third quarter, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:
HPQ
) increased notebook shipments slightly in November. According to
DigiTimes
, the top five notebook brands experienced a combined one month
drop of four percent. Asus, which recently released a bevy of
Windows 8 PCs, proved to be the worst performer. Hewlett-Packard
was the only firm that increased notebook shipments. Acer's
performance remained flat.
No other manufacturers were mentioned in the report, but a
previous study
found that Sony (NYSE:
SNE
) and Dell (NASDAQ:
DELL
) both saw an increase in sales when Windows 8 was initially
released.
Dell's value has increased by more than 13 percent since
Windows 8 became available on October 26. Sony, which has been
struggling to maintain profitability across all of its divisions,
lost more than 14 percent of its value. Hewlett-Packard declined
by one percent during the same period.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:
MSFT
), which has already sold
40 million licenses
for Windows 8, has declined more than six percent since the new
operating system was released. The company estimates that there
will be a combined total of
400 million
Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 devices produced in 2013.
Hewlett-Packard hopes to sell a large number of those devices,
including
40 million notebooks
. While PC sales have declined in 2012, it is not yet clear how
the industry will perform in 2013. There are a number of factors
that could impact its growth (or lack thereof), including the
release of new tablets.
In addition to Surface, which uses Windows RT, Microsoft is
rumored
to be developing an Xbox tablet. It is not yet known if this
device will run a special OS (similar to the consumer version of
Surface) or include a full copy of Windows 8. Since the focus of
the tablet would be on gaming, however, it is possible that
Microsoft will employ an OS that resembles that of the Xbox 360
user interface.
As tablet sales continue to increase, it is inevitable that
some PC sales will be lost. Windows-based machines are not the
only ones suffering. Topeka Capital Markets analyst Brian White
and ISI Group analyst Brian Marshall believe that iMac sales will
drop by
roughly 30 percent
this quarter. That is troubling news for Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
), which recently overhauled its desktop machines and announced
that the company will
produce new iMacs in America
next year.
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@LouisBedigianBZ
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