Don't expect Windows 10 to save sinking PC sales until 2017

Windows 10 is Microsoft's best received operating system in years, but it won't translate into a growing PC market at least until 2017.

At least according to Gartner. The resesarch firm says PC sales are expected to drop 7.3% this year, to 291 million units, and remain stagnant next year as well.

But the report said PC sales will ramp up 4% in 2017 when businesses finally start to adopt the new operating system.

"…while Windows 10 products on the Intel Skylake platform will increase in volumes throughout the year, Windows 10 adoption among businesses will ramp sharply in 2017, where we expect the PC market to return to a 4 percent growth," Gartner's research director Ranjit Atwal said.

Atwal says the decline is mainly because consumers are keeping their old PCs longer. There's not enough incentive to buy a new one until the old one breaks.

"Users are extending the lifetime of their devices, or deciding not to replace their devices at all," he said.

There have been lots of differing opinions about the impact of Windows 10 on new PC sales. Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich said Microsoft's new operating system, combined with Intel's new Skylake chips, will be a "boost to the PC market," because of the new features only available with Intel's new set of chips. Some analysts also told us Windows 10 and Skylake chips will increase PC sales at the expense of tablet sales.

Gartner agrees the tablet market will continue to be under pressure, and PC sales will eventually bounce back - just don't expect it to happen for a couple years.