NPD: Windows 8 Release Did Not Boost PC Sales

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Yesterday, Microsoft was boasting about sales of 40 million Windows 8 licenses, but today researchers said things aren’t looking as good for the new OS as Microsoft would like people to think. The NPD group claims that PC sales actually fell after the introduction of Windows 8.

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman reported, “Windows 8 may not be having the effect on sales that Microsoft had hoped. Sales are actually down 21% since the launch on Oct. 26, according to one researcher. The NPD Group reports that sales of Windows devices fell during the four-week period after the launch vs. the comparable period in 2011. The figures did not include sales for Microsoft’s Surface tablet. ‘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, VP of industry analysis at NPD, in a press release from the researcher. ‘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.'”

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley quoted NPD’s press release, which said, “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.”

Nathan Eddy from eWeek noted, “The report also found notebooks, which have been weak throughout most of 2012, saw that trend continue, falling nearly a quarter (24 percent) compared with the same period last year. However, desktop sales have fared better this year, dropping just 9 percent.”

A separate report from DigiTimes holds bad news for Microsoft’s Surface tablet sales as well. According to reporters Monica Chen and Joseph Tsai, “The upstream supply chain of Microsoft’s Surface RT has recently seen the tablet’s orders reduced by half, and with other Windows RT-based tablet orders also seeing weak performance, sources from the upstream supply chain believe the new operating system may not perform as well as expected in the market. Microsoft originally expected to ship four million Surface RT devices by the end of 2012, but has recently reduced the orders by half to only two million units. Although Asustek Computer, Samsung Electronics and Dell have all launched Windows RT-based tablets, consumer demand for those devices is also weak.”