Stefan Mileschin

The traditional desktop PC may be taking a battering from the rise of the mini-machines such as tablets and Ultrabooks, but shipments of all-in-ones are growing rapidly.

An iSuppli report shows that all-in-one shipments are expected to reach 16.4 million units this year, climbing 20 percent from 2011. Shipments are predicted to eventually climb to 24.8 million units by 2016, a compound annual growth rate of around 13 percent.

This is unlikely to make up for the often abysmal wider PC market as the total figure for growth in traditional PC shipments is set for a meagre 0.2 percent increase.

While analysts appear confident that the all-in-one market will help support the ailing desktop, even by 2016 it will only make up a small portion of the total 132.3 million units shipped this year.

The situation is markedly worse in the mature markets of Western Europe, with emerging markets likely the main reason for keeping the overall market afloat.

While it was Apple which was initially responsible for the all in one form factor, many vendors are keen to throw their weight behind the more modern take on the archaic grey box desktops over the decades.

HP launched a range of business and consumer all-in-ones yesterday, while Acer and Lenovo have also released machines recently.

It is likely that the products will also benefit from the touch screen capabilities of Windows 8 too.

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/all...e-digit-growth