According to the analyst group Gartner there have now been 1 billion PCs sold across the world. In the last 27 or so years PCs have slowly become extremely popular and analysts are saying that the future will see an increase in the number of PCs bought. The next billion, it has been estimated, will be sold in a far shorter period of time and the analysts expect sales of PCs to have doubled by 2007.
Of these sales a total of 75% of the computers have been purchased for the workplace, and America has been the biggest buyer with a total of 38.8% of the machines going there, Europe accounted for 25% and less than 12% went to Asia-Pacific. The first PC to be manufactured was the Altair 8800 in 1975 but sales only really picked up in the early 80s with the advent of DOS.
The milestone of 1 billion was actually reached in April according to the study and the predicted change in the tide of computer sales will be good news for retailers as last year saw a decline in the number of PCs sold.
Here's to the next billion computers, may they be more powerful and even more fun!
News source: Silicon.com