Microsoft: PC sales are still dismal in the next quarter

According to foreign media reports, Windows sales to OEMs will drop by more than a dozen percentage points, which at least means that Microsoft's global PC shipments will drop significantly. Microsoft’s forecast for Wall Street last week was that Windows’ revenue fell by 2% in the third quarter, but they also warned that PC shipments will continue to fall in double digits.

Amy Hood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, told a financial analyst’s earnings conference call on Thursday: “Because of the negative impact of the shrinking PC market, we expect revenue to continue to fall. We will exclude Windows from the impact of providing upgrades in the previous year. OEM revenue should account for about 65% of this sector's revenue and should decline by more than a dozen percentage points."

Because Microsoft has historically closely tracked sales of Windows to various OEMs, such as Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, this reflects the number of personal computers produced by the factory line. Hood revealed Microsoft's forecast: Basically, as of the September 30 quarter: PC shipments will decline by around 15% year-on-year.

By tracking the decline of PC shipments by more than ten percentage points, Hood's forecasted decline was larger than the forecast of IDC, a research company. IDC said a few weeks ago that PC shipments in the third quarter will fall by about 5% from 2012. However, recently, IDC stated that they suspect their third and fourth quarter estimates are too optimistic. The company updates its monthly forecast for quarterly PC sales and may lower its figure by the end of July.

If Hood's forecast is correct, then PC shipments in the third quarter of this year will fall from 88.3 million units in the same period last year to about 75 million units. This will enable PC shipments this year to barely reach 300 million units, down from 50 million units in the previous year, or about 14% year-round.

However, PC sales this quarter may be worse than Hood hints: Windows sales to OEMs do not always match PC shipments, and sometimes lag several percentage points. Some can be attributed to non-windows system personal computers, such as notebooks based on mac and Chrome operating systems. In China, there is no operating system loaded when a considerable number of PCs leave the factory. Later, the dealer or customer only needs to install one—in many cases, pirated Windows, which can only bring zero revenue to Microsoft.

Hood also said that on the other hand, Windows' revenue will only decline by about 1.9% year-on-year. According to her data to analysts, Windows Group’s revenue for the quarter will be approximately US$3.18 billion, compared with US$3.24 billion in the third quarter of 2012.

Hood said that a sharp drop in Windows sales to OEMs will offset the revenue generated by the Surface tablet - at least for now, it will continue to be reflected in the Windows department's earnings report - and a large number of software licenses, including the annuity payment of large company software guarantees.

If Hood's PC predictions come true, this will be Microsoft's sixth consecutive quarterly business contraction, setting a record for the largest single-quarter decline, according to research firm IDC and Gartner tracking figures, 2013 will be the largest in nearly 20 years The speed of goods fell.