Thursday, November 29th 2012
Windows 8 Gets Off To a Slow Start, According to The NPD Group
The consumer Windows PC and tablet market didn't get the boost it needed from the launch of Microsoft's Windows 8 in the U.S. Since the Windows 8 launch on October 26, Windows device sales have fallen 21 percent versus the same period last year, according to leading market research company The NPD Group's Weekly Tracking Service. Notebooks, which have been weak throughout most of 2012, saw that trend continue as they fell 24 percent. Desktop sales have fared better this year, dropping just 9 percent.
"After just four weeks on the market, it's still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for."
Since its launch, Windows 8 has captured just over half (58 percent) of Windows computing device unit sales, compared to the 83 percent Windows 7 accounted for four weeks after that launch. Windows 8 tablet sales have been almost non-existent, with unit sales representing less than 1 percent of all Windows 8 device sales to date.
"The bad Back-to-School period left a lot of inventory in the channel, which had a real impact on the initial sell-through rates for Windows 8," said Baker. "The strong performance of Windows 8 notebooks with touchscreens, where Windows 8 truly shines, offers some reason for optimism. These products accounted for 6 percent of Windows 8 notebook sales at an average price of $867 helping to re-establish a premium segment to the Windows consumer notebook market."
Average selling prices of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly this year. Last year, overall ASP was $433 while this year's ASP over the past four weeks has risen to $477. Windows 8 notebooks have seen a nearly $80 rise in selling prices versus the prior year, propelled by the aforementioned strong performance of touchscreen devices and a solid uptick in the pricing on mainstream notebooks. Windows 8 desktop ASPs were also strong with selling prices up nearly 10 percent, driven by the same factors as notebook sales.
"After just four weeks on the market, it's still early to place blame on Windows 8 for the ongoing weakness in the PC market," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "We still have the whole holiday selling season ahead of us, but clearly Windows 8 did not prove to be the impetus for a sales turnaround some had hoped for."
Since its launch, Windows 8 has captured just over half (58 percent) of Windows computing device unit sales, compared to the 83 percent Windows 7 accounted for four weeks after that launch. Windows 8 tablet sales have been almost non-existent, with unit sales representing less than 1 percent of all Windows 8 device sales to date.
"The bad Back-to-School period left a lot of inventory in the channel, which had a real impact on the initial sell-through rates for Windows 8," said Baker. "The strong performance of Windows 8 notebooks with touchscreens, where Windows 8 truly shines, offers some reason for optimism. These products accounted for 6 percent of Windows 8 notebook sales at an average price of $867 helping to re-establish a premium segment to the Windows consumer notebook market."
Average selling prices of Windows computing devices have jumped significantly this year. Last year, overall ASP was $433 while this year's ASP over the past four weeks has risen to $477. Windows 8 notebooks have seen a nearly $80 rise in selling prices versus the prior year, propelled by the aforementioned strong performance of touchscreen devices and a solid uptick in the pricing on mainstream notebooks. Windows 8 desktop ASPs were also strong with selling prices up nearly 10 percent, driven by the same factors as notebook sales.
39 Comments on Windows 8 Gets Off To a Slow Start, According to The NPD Group
If you go by their numbers, PC gaming died 10 years ago. NDP is kinda useless anymore.
EDIT?: Where did you post go Newtek??
"Become our customer"... "pay the fees"... "share your internal data with us"... "we will then make this publicly available" xxxxxxxxx "but if you dont, we'll harm your efforts of trying to "up" your questionable OS"
Blackmail in another name if you ask me.
My only point is that number is not as impressive as it looks, because they sold it for way cheaper than normal AND it includes computers with windows 8 on them - and i don't know but could also possibly include licenses sold TO companies, and not just end users.
Windows 8 is getting off to a slow start because it sucks. Steep learning curve, frustrating "change for the sake of change" interface, and sketchy support for legacy apps means its dead in the water for most computer users.
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/nov/19/apple-microsoft-steven-sinofsky
With this:
"Since its launch, Windows 8 has captured just over half (58 percent) of Windows computing device unit sales, compared to the 83 percent Windows 7 accounted for four weeks after that launch. Windows 8 tablet sales have been almost non-existent, with unit sales representing less than 1 percent of all Windows 8 device sales to date."
And the fact that every other IT dept I have contact with, and our software vendors are recommending to stay away from it, I would bet against.
Heck, most IT places here are still running XP, and on boxes that are nearly 10 years old, if not more. My wife has probably one of the most advanced PCs at the hospital she works at...and it's not even a P55 chipset.
IT managers are NOT the people to ask about tech, at all, unfortunately. The hospital guys say what I do, review-wise, is too far above their heads for them to care about.
If these guys don't understand hardware I doubt they can understand software.
I don't care how good your OS is, upgrading an entire company to it is a big job, and not one that should be (or is) taken lightly.
I work at a University and Microsoft reps have been around lately demoing Windows 8 devices in various locations to students. I've attended a few and saw nothing but positive reactions from people. Hell, even people in my department (though they are mostly IT people) who are anti-Windows find the UI pleasing.
When 7 came out, and even when XP came out, there was much less reluctance to adopt (read: order new equipment with it preinstalled) among conservative users (i.e. IT depts) than when ME, Vista, and now 8 arrived.We as in the people who constantly make excuses for a software because we want it to work. And I say we because everyone has a tendency to deny that something that they want to be great just isn't. I'm glad you had fun at your tech demo. Did you buy a windows 8 device?
If you didn't, then you would be part of my 'we' as someone who went to the demo, wants to like the software, never actually used it for real, day to day work, and then went on the internet defending it.
I work at a Hospital in the IT department there, not counting any personnel machines and servers we had ~5,000 systems to take care of in each of the hospitals under our name with a total of 5 hospitals, equaling about ~20,000 units.(tossing out our numerous off site and outpatient centers and any medical equipment running Windows as a base OS)
At the end of 2013 we are suppose to start a migration to Windows 7, right now the systems are all on Windows 2000. The migration is estimated to take about a year till completion.
Large corporations upgrade slowly, talking to them about Windows 8 is a horrible place to get opinions.
Maybe part of it more people wanted new electronics last year than this year like shit maybe people are pissed being told ya shits outa date every 6-12 months and thought wtf why do i need to change.
Maybe there is more people this year that cannot afford shit..
To me what ever sales they say win8 has done i will not take it as solid proof that the OS is any better than win7..
I don't know what took them so damn long to finally modernize it, but I am so glad they finally did. It took them long enough but I am glad it's here.
Everyone saying it'll fail for one reason or another. While I agree with them a bit, I now say it'll fail because we don't get any OS-tans!
Its not fair! Japan gets special OS-tan marketing and we get boring boxes to match the boring UI!
But for many people like myself it was better than windows XP-64bit and it added direct X10 support.
Windows 7 is awesome runs great pretty much a fixed version of windows Vista.
Windows 8 IMO is a backwards step. I really want to know what drugs they were smoking.
The gui is awful. Yes there is an icon called desktop but it’s the same as windows 7.
IMO windows 8 is a mobile phone os that has been forced up on the people.
Windows 8 is the fisher price os.
I can't find any new features that are cool or worthwhile. I actually felt sick when using windows 8.
I heard windows 9 logo is just 1 square!:P And the drop the S MS window :P
But each to their own.
Ever since XP I use the windows classic theme.
I even moved from Ubuntu because I though unity was an abomination ( it isn't compared to windows 8) to Lubuntu or LXDE because its light weight and gets the job done.
Ill keep windows 7 to play games and continue to dual boot.
If you think about it windows 8 makes sense from a profit point of view. As if you want a new computer with windows 7 you can’t get one. So many metro haters will just buy a console to make games.
this would be a perfect time for Valve to make a gaming linux distro .... hint hint ...
The artical should be called windows 8 gets off to a slow - tile ! :P