Competition from tablets and smartphones was one of the reasons research firm IDC cited a decline in PC shipments during 2015, despite the fact these sectors are seeing their own challenges.

The presence of alternative devices, along with longer PC lifecycles, was defined as a “persistent challenge” for the sector. But economic issues such as falling commodity prices and weak international currencies, as well as social disruptions in EMEA and Asia Pacific that disrupted foreign markets, were a larger factor in 2015.

The company also noted that with the debut of new OS and hardware combinations, the PC market is taking time to respond, “deciding when to upgrade and evaluating slim, convertible, detachable and touch variations versus more traditional PCs”.

“Detachable tablets”, which IDC counts separately from PCs, are “growing quickly but from a small base” and, if added to the PC total, would have reduced the size of the decline (although the curve would still have been downward).

According to the company, worldwide PC shipments for 2015 stood at 276,216 for the full year, down 10.4 per cent year-on-year. This was the first year below 300 million units since 2008.