PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
The three leading PC manufacturers around the world have teamed up with tech giants Microsoft and Intel for a big PC advertising push.
The campaign, which launched today (Thursday 15th October), carries the slogan ‘PC Does What?’ and features TV, print and online advertisements.
The join effort from Lenovo, HP, Dell, Microsoft and Intel is obviously aimed at selling more PCs, which is nothing new for these top tech firms, but it’s not very often that you see rivals join forces.
So what’s caused them all to work together? Well, worldwide PC shipments totalled 73.7 million units in Q3 2015 – a 7.7 per cent decline from Q3 2014, according to Gartner. And according to IDC, PC sales are forecast to shrink by more than eight per cent and not stabilise until 2017.
Couple this with the fact that Intel recently revealed that there are 500 million PCs out there that are five years old or older out there, and you can start to see why the partnership has come about.
The "PC Does What?" ads will focus on the versatility and flexibility of modern PCs and some are suggesting that this is a delayed response to Apple’s late 00s ad campaign ‘Get a Mac’ which depicted PCs as old and out-dated compared to ‘hip’ Macs.
While Apple may be an easy target for the ad campaign, we have seen plenty of advertising campaigns over the years where various manufactures take digs at Apple and its fan base and vice versa.
Also, if we go by IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker, Apple moved up from fifth place to fourth in the top vendor ranks from 2014 to 2015, owning 7.8 per cent of the market in Q2 2015 – making it the top three’s biggest threat for market share.
“Apple continued to outperform other vendors, with growth of 16.1 per cent globally,” said IDC in its second quarter PC shipment tracker.
“The vendor has largely avoided the price competition affecting other players and may be benefitting from some of the uncertainty around the launch of Windows 10, along with refreshed products like the 12-inch MacBook and a relative concentration of shipments in the U.S.”
