Mikako Kitagawa, prin­ci­pal ana­lyst at Gartner:

Weak demand for con­sumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth. Low prices for con­sumer PCs, which had long stim­u­lated growth, no longer attracted buy­ers. Instead, con­sumers turned their atten­tion to media tablets and other con­sumer elec­tron­ics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more con­sumers either switched to buy­ing an alter­na­tive device, or sim­ply held back from buy­ing PCs. We’re inves­ti­gat­ing whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market.

Worldwide PC ship­ments declined 1.1% Y/Y to 84.3 mil­lion units, and the iPad 2 is the cul­prit. Folks that never had a PC their entire lives are buy­ing iPads. Folks with mul­ti­ple PCs are buy­ing iPads. Another fac­tor is that most PCs that are being used are quite ser­vice­able and will be for quite some time. If you think you need a new PC upgrade instead: change out the hard drive for a SSD and add some extra RAM. These upgrades will cost less, res­ur­rect your old PC, and you’ll be help­ing the envi­ron­ment. Will the iPad and other tablets have long-term effects on the PC mar­ket? You bet.