Market segments

Information on various segments of the world market of computers is presented on TAdviser.

2019

Lenovo takes the lead - IDC

The volume of the global market for personal computers (desktops, laptops and workstations; hybrid devices are excluded) in 2019 reached 266.7 million units, an increase of 2.7% compared to 2018. Moreover, this is the first rise since 2011, when the growth rate was measured at 1.7%. A new leader has appeared in the list of the largest manufacturers, according to data from analysts at IDC.

First market growth in 8 years - Gartner

In 2019, the volume of the global personal computer market grew for the first time in 8 years. This is evidenced by data from Gartner, released on January 13, 2020.

According to analysts, in 2019, manufacturers worldwide shipped a total of 261.2 million desktops, laptops and hybrid devices like the Microsoft Surface line, up 0.6% from 2018. Prior to that, equipment shipments had been falling for seven consecutive years.

According to Gartner lead analyst Mikako Kitagawa, the boom is largely due to the fact that companies have begun to update their computer fleets to move to the Windows 10 operating system. At the same time, many companies in developing countries, including Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific region and China, have not yet updated their PCs, which opens up opportunities for maintaining the growth of the PC market in 2020, the expert noted.

At the same time, the researchers admit negative dynamics and associate it with the end of the cycle of updating corporate systems from solutions for Windows 7 to a hardware platform of the level of Windows 10. In addition, the negative trend will also be held due to economic uncertainty due to trade wars, as well as the continuing shortage of the latest Intel processors. Additionally, Gartner mentioned too high prices for updating home computers for specific consumer tasks, including games.

The three largest computer manufacturers are Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell - captured 63.1% of the market in terms of quantitative equipment shipments at the end of 2019, while in 2018 this share was measured at 60.2%. Mikako Kitagawa stressed that Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell saw PC shipments grow above market dynamics in 2019.

With the exception of the Asia-Pacific region, Lenovo recorded year-on-year growth in PC sales in all regions, the study said. Only in the shipments of desktops the company increased by more than 30% year on year. This allowed the Chinese vendor to maintain its leadership and demonstrate the highest growth rates (+ 8.1%) in computer shipments among the six largest manufacturers.

HP has seen its PC shipments grow during the last three quarters of 2019. The company holds a leading position in the USA, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and Latin America.

Dell has increased PC shipments in all regions at an above-average pace in each region, driven in large part by strong demand for the company's desktops.

Gartner predicts a steady decline in the consumer PC market over the next five years, Kitagawa said. He recalled that there has been a shortage of Intel processors in the market since mid-2019, without which the growth in PC sales would have been more significant.

Mikako Kitagawa says the emergence of innovative products such as foldable notebook computers is a key driver of growth for the entire computer market. In addition, demand is supported by initiatives that make it easier to use computers like smartphones. In particular, we are talking about devices that can be constantly turned on and work for a long time without recharging.

2018

Lenovo takes the lead - Gartner

On January 10, 2019, the analytical company Gartner published the results of a study of the global personal computer market, from which it became known about the change of the leader. Most of all computers in 2018 were delivered by Lenovo - 58.5 million units, which is 6.9% more than a year earlier.

The second negative factor, he considers political and economic uncertainty in a number of countries. The problem has affected even an economy as strong as it is, and has affected the most vulnerable groups of buyers, including small and medium-sized businesses, Kitagawa said.

Market decline for 7 years - IDC

In 2018, computer manufacturers delivered a total of 258.5 million desktops, laptops and workstations to the global market, which is 0.4% less than in 2017. Analysts cited such data in their regular report Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker in January 2019. Sales have been declining for seven years in a row.

According to experts, the PC market has performed better than expected due to the update of computers in the companies, caused by the approach of the end of support for Windows 7 (January 2020). Strong performance in the corporate segment helped offset the downturn in the consumer sector.

In all regions except the US, computer sales exceeded market expectations, although the Asia-Pacific region was challenged by the challenging environment in the Chinese commercial market.

The continuing economic tension between China and the United States continues to create great uncertainty in the business environment in the PRC. As demand for Chinese goods in the US falls, this is particularly affecting manufacturing plants of all sizes in China, which in turn is causing these companies to reduce their IT purchases, said IDC analyst Maciek Gornicki. - As a result, we can expect an increase in the rate of decline in the Chinese computer market in 2019. And if the trade war escalates further, its consequences could spread to other countries, especially in connection with the expected fluctuations in currency rates that affect companies in the region.

The balance of power among the largest computer manufacturers is presented in the table below. It should be noted that HP Inc. retained its leadership, however, the gap from the closest pursuer - Lenovo - was minimal. HP Inc. it helped that the company was better than most competitors in weathering the fall in the PC market in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a study by IDC.

2017

Fall within 6 years - Gartner

In January 2018, the analytical company Gartner summed up the results of the past year in the global personal computer market. According to preliminary estimates, manufacturers released over 262.5 million devices in 2017, including desktops, laptops, premium ultraportable PCs, and Windows-based hybrid devices. The indicator is 2.8% less than in 2016, thus, the negative dynamics in the market has been observed for six years in a row.

Researchers draw attention to the ongoing consolidation of the PC industry. In 2017, the four largest PC vendors controlled 64% of the market, which is significantly higher than in 2011, when the top four players accounted for only 45% of total PC shipments.

The largest PC manufacturer in 2017 was HP Inc. , which supplied more than 55 million computers, or 21% of the global volume. Compared to 2016, HP's shipments increased by 4.6%, and the share increased by 1.5%, which allowed the American vendor to bypass its Chinese competitor Lenovo, which topped the rating in 2016.

Lenovo dropped to second place with an annual result of 54.7 million PC devices and a share of 20.8%. For comparison, in 2016 the volume of deliveries of Lenovo computers reached 55.95 million units, and the share was 20.7%.

Best Performance in 6 Years - IDC

In 2017, the global personal computer market shrank, but showed the best results in the previous six years. This was reported by the analytical company International Data Corporation (IDC).

According to experts, in 2017, manufacturers released a total of 259.5 million desktops, laptops and workstations, which is 0.2% less than a year earlier. 2017 became the most stable year for the market since 2011, according to the study.

According to analysts, the situation in the PC industry is improving due to the renewal of corporate computers and increased consumer demand. In addition, the market is helped by the falling sales of tablets, the manufacturers of which are again switching to the production of laptops, so in 2017 there was an increase in the number of ultra-thin, transformable and gaming systems.

2016

Falling sales of monoblocks for 3 years

On June 7, 2017, the analytical company Digitimes Research presented some results of a study of the world market for monoblock computers. Sales of these devices have been falling for three years in a row.

In 2016, manufacturers released a total of 12.18 million monoblock desktops, down 1.7% from a year earlier, due to a downturn in the consumer sector. In 2014 and 2015, there was also a decline in sales of monoblocks. According to experts, the market will recover in 2017-2018.

Global shipments of all-in-one PCs in 2016 did not fall as much as the entire computer market, as a result of which the share of this segment in physical terms amounted to a record 10.4%. In the next two years, this share will increase, analysts are sure.

Lenovo remains the leader of the world market of all-in-one computers. Moreover, in 2016, the Chinese company increased its lead over its closest pursuer - HP Inc. The four largest all-in-one manufacturers controlled 83.8% of the market in 2016. In 2017, the figure will reach 85.2% due to the fact that Lenovo will increase the supply of equipment, HP Inc. strong sales in the corporate sector are expected, and Apple has introduced new models, according to a study by Digitimes Research.

In 2016, iMac shipments were measured at 2.26 million units against 2.53 million units a year earlier. Experts expect shipments of these devices to rise to 2.36 million units in 2017.

Among the contract manufacturers of monoblocks, analysts point out Compal Electronics, which in 2016 showed the largest increase in shipments thanks to orders received as a result of TPV-Inventa's withdrawal from the market. Compal is expected to record the fastest growth in shipments in the contract manufacturing sector of all-in-one PCs by the end of 2017, as well as become the second largest manufacturer of these computers in Taiwan after Quanta Computer.

Fall for the fifth year in a row

On January 11, 2017, the analytical company Gartner published the results of a study of the global personal computer market. Its volume, according to experts, has been declining for five years in a row.

According to Gartner, in 2016, the shipments of desktops and laptops globally amounted to 269.7 million units, a decrease of 6.2% compared to 2015. The market has been falling steadily since 2012.

The computer market stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2016 as holiday sales were generally weak due to fundamental shifts in PC buying behavior, said Mikako Kitagawa, senior analyst at Gartner. “The entire personal computer market is static as technology improvements have not been sufficient to drive growth. There are several innovative form factors such as hybrid devices and ultra-thin and light laptops, as well as technological advancements such as increased battery life. This part of the market is growing rapidly, attracting more users who prioritize PCs. However, the segment supported by computer enthusiasts is not large enough to support the growth of the entire market.

One of the negative factors for the PC market is the popularity of smartphones, which is causing the computer's use cycle to increase, Kitagawa said.

The three largest manufacturers of desktops and laptops in 2016 did not undergo changes: Lenovo, HP Inc. and Dell recorded 54.7% of the market as an asset against 51.5% a year earlier. However, among these companies, only Dell was able to increase product shipments - by 2.6%. Moreover, Dell remained the only growing vendor in the top 6 vendors (see table above).

2015

Record decline

Outcome

Source: IDC

Fall for the fourth year in a row

On January 12, 2016 the analytical company Gartner published the results of the research of the world market of personal computers. Its volume, according to experts, has been declining for four years.

Gartner estimates that in 2015 shipments of desktops and laptops globally amounted to 288.7 million units, which is 8% less than a year earlier. The market began to decline in 2012 after the introduction of a large number of tablets.

In 2015, one of the main problems for the computer industry was the devaluation of world currencies. It is because of this factor that PC production in Japan and the countries of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America at the end of 2015 decreased by almost 10% compared to 2014. In the US and Asia Pacific, regression was minimal as currency fluctuations did not affect these markets.

In October – December 2015, the volume of the global computer industry decreased by 8.3% compared to the same period last year, amounting to 75.7 million pieces. This quarterly decline was the fifth in a row and showed that even the pre-New Year season does not contribute to the overall increase in demand for PCs, which in turn indicates changes in consumer buying behavior towards these devices, said Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa.

According to him, among corporate customers, Windows 10 received a lot of positive feedback, but in the fourth quarter of 2015, companies were only testing this OS and were in no hurry to switch to it.

The six largest PC vendors - Lenovo, Dell, ASUS, Apple and Acer - accounted for 73.1% of global shipments in 2015 against 70.4% a year earlier. Lenovo retained its market leadership with a 19.8% share. The top three also included HP (18.2%) and Dell (13.6%). They are followed by ASUS (7.3%), Apple (7.2%) and Acer (7%). Among the listed manufacturers, only Apple managed to increase shipments of computers in 2015, according to data from Gartner.

2014

Third recession in a row

On August 26, 2015, the research company International Data Corporation (IDC) posted on its website a message from which it became known about the situation in the global computer market.

In 2014, according to analysts, manufacturers worldwide shipped 308.3 million personal computers, down 2.1% from a year earlier. The annual market volume fell for the third time in a row, although the rate of decline was almost five times slower than in 2013.

The improvement in the computer industry was due to the end of official support for Windows XP and the Windows 8.1 with Bing program, under which vendors released budget laptops that are in high demand in many regions, especially in emerging economies. However, even these devices did not save the laptop segment from falling.

At the same time, the negative impact of the popularity of smartphones on computer sales has weakened. IDC says that in 2015 the growth of the global market for "smart" phones will slow down threefold - to 10.4%, and in the coming years, shipments of these devices will increase by only a few percent.

In their research, analysts did not provide the balance of power among computer manufacturers in 2014.

Market decline by 2.2%

Top 5 world PC vendors, Q3 2012, thousand units

IDC, 2012

Interestingly, at the same time as IDC, another respected research company, Gartner, released its report on the state of the world PC market in the third quarter of 2012. According to this firm, the Chinese Lenovo for the first time in its history came out on top in the supply of PCs in the world. True, analysts at Gartner point out that these are only preliminary estimates. Gartner estimates Lenovo and HP's market shares to be 15.7% and 15.5%, respectively. Dell, Acer and Asus follow, as does IDC.

Second quarter

Worldwide PC shipments in the second quarter of 2012 decreased, according to Gartner, by 0.1% over the same period last year to 87.46 million units of equipment. The impact was both global economic instability and the fact that ultrabook sales fell short of expectations: they are still at an early stage of adaptation, although they appeared on the market back in 2011.

Virtualization technologies have made it possible to abstract the application layer from a certain type of device, OS, even processor architecture.

Changing approaches to the design, delivery and use of software

Applications are becoming ubiquitous cross-platform and involve the execution of a piece of code on the server side or in the cloud.

Intel, but also software vendors, whose revenues depend to some extent on the sale of applications on new PCs.

According to Gartner, in the fourth quarter of 2011, worldwide PC shipments amounted to 92.2 million units. - 1.4% less than in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In turn, IDC announced a slowdown in sales of personal computers in the last three months of 2011. The reasons for the recession, according to company analysts, are a weak economy, a shortage of hard drives as a result of flooding in Thailand and competition from tablets. According to IDC estimates, in the fourth quarter of 2011, global PC shipments amounted to 92.7 million units, which is 0.1% less compared to the same period in 2010.

Since its inception in 1976, Apple has always sold and architected computers with its own operating system. Until 15 years ago, it seemed that Apple was hopelessly losing to the actual developer of the Wintel ecosystem - the American IBM, which allowed other companies to churn out "IBM-compatible computers." When co-founder Steve Jobs returned to the post of Apple CEO in 1998, Microsoft founder Bill Gates quipped: “What I can't understand is why he (Jobs) is still trying? He understands that he will not win. " In those days, the capitalization of Apple and the United States. 90,000 Acer tablets were sold in Russia in the second quarter, says the head of its Russian office, Gleb Mishin. But the Android platform is still "unfinished" and the tablets are "one-sided", so Apple has no serious competition, says Eldar Murtazin, a leading analyst at Mobile Research Group.

In monetary terms, the Chinese market also surpassed the US - $ 11.9 billion versus $ 11.7 billion - taking 22% of the global personal computer market.

However, IDC predicts that the United States will remain in first place in 2011 as a whole, as sales in the United States usually pick up at the end of the year. According to analysts' calculations, 73.4 million personal computers will be sold in the United States in 2011, which is 1 million more than in China. But in 2012, China will finally overtake the United States in this indicator - 85.1 million against 76.6 million, they predict.

For Russia data are not provided. For comparison, in the first quarter of 2011, 2.31 million personal computers were shipped in Russia.

For the second year already, China is ahead of the United States in terms of the volume of the car market - in 2010, their sales increased by 32% to 18.06 million units (including trucks). In the United States, 11.6 million vehicles were sold last year. According to OECD forecasts, China may surpass the United States in terms of industrial production in 5-7 years, and in terms of GDP - until 2030.

IDC and Gartner forecasts: theory and practice

The above results of IDC and Gartner on the state of affairs in the PC market in the first quarter of 2012, though not fundamentally, are still different and, at times, noticeably. We propose to refer to the forecasts made earlier by these research companies and see how accurate they later turned out to be.

IDC predicted that 217.2 million notebooks would ship in 2010, up from 169 million in 2009. By 2012, portable systems were expected to occupy 70% of the market in quantitative terms. At the end of 2010, the total volume of the PC market amounted to 346.8 million units. Assuming that IDC's forecast turned out to be extremely correct, the share of laptops in this volume reached almost 63% - clearly an overestimated figure for 2010. The growth in shipments was mainly driven by increased interest in portable devices in emerging economies.

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini expected to see netbooks and other similar systems in 2010 at 20%, IDC at 12% of the market in numerical terms. Intel's higher forecast is not accidental - it is the monopoly of the processor market for low-cost systems. This, in particular, supported the company during the active phase of the recession. IDC's harsh estimates were closer to the truth, netbooks did not become a truly successful product category.

As for tablet PCs, according to IDC forecasts, in 2010 they should sell about 7 million such devices and about 46 million - in 2014. As it soon became clear, only in the fourth quarter of 2010 it was possible to sell 10.7 million tablets (data from Strategy Analytics ).

Gartner cut its PC shipments growth forecast for 2011 at 15.9% versus 18.1% previously estimated. According to the updated forecast, 409 million PCs should be delivered to the world market.

Projected supply volumes for 2009-2011 had to be cut due to a number of factors, Gartner explained.

First, analysts have recorded a change in consumer behavior - a shift in interest in innovative gadgets, which include new models of smartphones and multimedia tablets. Analysts believe that buyers in developing regions who do not yet have a personal computer may refuse to buy it in favor of a tablet, the capabilities of which will only approach the capabilities of a PC, while the convenience of consuming content and communicating on social networks using a tablet costs head and shoulders above now.

Secondly, the decrease in the growth rate of supplies is due to savings. Realizing that the process of overcoming the crisis may take additional time (and it is not known how long), consumers tend to postpone the purchase of a new system until better times. The same goes for the corporate segment. There are already examples of entire companies switching to the iPad, which believe that this computer will not become obsolete as quickly as the traditional system.

Analysts also pointed to the inability of the traditional personal computer market to offer something truly new. It is difficult to come up with more convenient systems that would have received a resounding success, and all that remains is to reduce prices and lean on volumes, and this model has already exhausted itself. Tablet PCs are one new avenue that can help preserve manufacturers' income.

Gartner also mentioned another factor in the slowdown in market growth - virtual workspace technology. It is expected that with the proliferation of thin clients, the need for hardware upgrades in the workplace will recede into the background. This will have a negative impact on sales of desktop PCs in the corporate segment. However, this factor will begin to operate no earlier than 2012.

In general, the conclusions of Gartner turned out to be correct, but as a result, the market volume in quantitative terms in 2011 did not even exceed 352.8 million PCs. The bad economic situation in Western Europe and the lack of hard drives in the fourth quarter due to flooding in Thailand were the reasons for such a sharp decline in shipments.

Gartner analysts are confident that desktop shipments will continue to grow in 2011-2012, growth will be minimal in 2013, and negative dynamics will appear in 2014. Sales of portable systems will show diametrical results - explosive growth rates annually through 2014, which is predicted. In 2014, according to IDC, 426.9 million laptop computers will be shipped to the world market. By this time, tablets will consume 10% of the PC market in quantitative terms (IDC and Gartner do not classify tablets as personal computers).

2010: Growth of sales by 13% to 350 million PCs. HP Leader

On an annualized basis, PC shipments to the global market in 2010 grew by 13.8% to 350.9 million units - according to Gartner - and by 13.6% to 346.2 million - according to IDC. The best result was shown by Lenovo, whose shipments grew by 37.3%. Apart from Lenovo, only one company, Toshiba, exceeded the market average in the top five manufacturers. In 2010, the company launched a new brand strategy and celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of the first laptop.

World PC shipments in 2010 (pcs., Preliminary results)

Company	Deliveries in 2010	Market share in 2010,%	Deliveries in 2009	Market share in 2009,%	Year-on-year growth,%
HP	62768547	17,9	58942530	19,1	6,5
Acer	45265678	12,9	39783933	12,9	13,8
Dell	42123680	12,0	37353774	12,1	12,8
Lenovo	33965812	9,7	24735404	8,0	37,3
Toshiba	19011752	5,4	15499805	5,0	22,7
Other	147768653	42,1	132026226	42,8	11,9
Total	350904121	100,0	308341673	100,0	13,8

The annual growth in the amount of memory and the speed of the PC at a relatively low rate of growth in value for this qualitative increase has constantly expanded its capabilities and availability in various spheres of human activity.

The emergence and spread of mobile personal computers in the form of laptops allowed the managers and specialists of firms not to interrupt their professional activities even when traveling by any type of transport and at any distance from their permanent place of work in the office.

In the mid-90s of the twentieth century, networked information technologies began to gain mass distribution.

If at first local networks were used to solve the simplest problems, for example, to organize collective access of PC users in a company to printing devices - printers, then gradually computer networks have become an effective and indispensable tool for internal and external corporate information exchange.

Second phase with confidence can be called the initial stage of the birth and formation of e-commerce, which is most directly related to the development and spread of the Internet.

Its beginning, obviously, should be considered the rapid development of global networks and e-mail, with which none of the other existing types can currently be compared in terms of the ease of registering an address, the formation of any volume of text, the speed of sending and receiving text materials, as well as the cost of services. communication.

Lightning-fast e-mail reduced the clumsy paper workflow, and compact computer databases, magnetic media began to successfully replace bulky and dusty paper archives. In terms of labor productivity, resource costs, speed of action and price, it has become a serious competitor to other types of communication.

It should be noted that not only companies, institutions, organizations, but also individuals with different income levels began to use e-mail services widely.

The development of software and information technologies has made it possible to transfer communication with a computer from the narrow professional sphere of specially trained computer specialists to almost any field of human activity for users of any level of training that does not require long-term mastering of special professional knowledge.

A real revolution in business was made by the successful development and widespread use of computer graphics and, along with it, graphical interfaces that are simple, understandable and accessible to entry-level computer users.

Companies switched to standardized sets of computer programs for the automation of clerical, accounting and other work. Microsoft Windows software products began a triumphant march across the planet.

Time passed, and a rainbow of colors came to replace the black-and-white image on personal computer monitors, and text material began to be accompanied by video and audio files.

Employees of companies who, due to the nature of their functional responsibilities, often travel outside the office on business, for example, marketing managers, sales representatives, became the first owners and users of mobile computers and modems - remote means of communication with the office network.

The constantly increasing electronic information turnover required the development of new technologies, methods, approaches, digital communication channels and the expansion of the bandwidth of global information networks. On this basis, high-speed technologies for the transmission of information data such as Fast Eternet began to form and develop.

The introduction and widespread dissemination of network information technologies made it possible to dramatically reduce the cost of operating personal computers and provided an opportunity to switch to electronic forms of accounting, control, management, payment settlements and other business relations. However, the fact that these networks were local and limited to the boundaries of the geographical location of the companies severely constrained the development of e-business and commerce.

The formation and development of the Internet as a means of communication, accumulation, public and targeted dissemination of information, exchange of information materials has greatly outgrown its planned initial functions.

In a short time of its development, the Internet has practically “destroyed” the geographical and national barriers that are most characteristic of the main traditional communications, not only within a single state, but also across the entire globe.

These global networks have radically changed the strategy and tactics of conducting e-business, just as the emergence and development of new trade routes, types and types of vehicles, telegraph, telephone, radio, television, rail, road, sea, air and pipeline routes changed the nature of doing business. business in the historical past.

The birth of e-commerce itself should be considered the implementation of the first sales of book products via the Internet in 1995 in the online mode, the first online store Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) formed as an experiment, which in 2000 turned into monster of the Internet book market.

Third stage coincided with the beginning of the XXI century and is associated with an increase in the number of users from various countries connected to the Internet. In 2000, the total number of installed personal computers in the world exceeded 516 million.

By this period, the capacity of the computer services market, which includes the production and sale of all kinds of computer hardware, software and information technology support, network equipment, Internet products, computer communications, etc., exceeded 4 trillion US dollars.

According to Telcordia Technologies, as of January 12, 2001, the total number of hosts on the Internet was 100 million. The analysis shows a constant stable growth of their number in all regions of the world (North America, Europe, Asia, etc.) at approximately the same rate of about 90-130% annually.

According to some sources:

“Host” is a computer that is permanently connected to the network and contains any information;

“Active site” - a personal computer that regularly (several times a week) and for a long time (several hours) is included in the information environment of the Internet.

For example, the total number of hosts on the Internet in January 2000 was more than 5 million, and in 1998 there were about 400 thousand active sites on the global network, in 1999 there were already 850 thousand, and there were 69 million hosts. at the same time, by 2002 more than 2 million active sites are projected.

The total turnover of the Internet industry in 2004, according to experts, should be more than 7 trillion US dollars. In 1996 it was only 500-600 million, in 1997 - 8-10 billion, in 2000 it is approaching trillion.

By this time, it is expected that about 10,000 large commercial projects, including online exchanges, as well as a significant number of companies specializing in the maintenance and technical support of portals, will operate on the global network.

It should be noted that all these forecasts look quite optimistic against the backdrop of a fall in the value of shares of companies engaged in the electronic business. Moreover, these companies operate in the United States, which is still the undisputed leading country in the field of e-commerce.

3. The Internet is a global computer network covering the whole world. According to various sources, between 15 and 30 million people in more than 150 countries of the world have access to the Internet. The size of the network is increasing by 7 to 10 percent every month. The Internet forms, as it were, the core that connects various information networks belonging to various institutions around the world, one with another. If earlier the network was used exclusively as a medium for transferring files and e-mail messages, today more complex problems of distributing access to resources are being solved. The Internet, once exclusively serving research and teaching groups whose interests extended as far as access to supercomputers, is becoming more and more popular in the business world. Companies are tempted by speed, cheapness, convenience for joint work, available programs, and a unique Internet database. With a low cost of services, users can access commercial and non-commercial information services of the USA, Canada, Australia and many European countries. In the archives of free access to the Internet, one can find information on any spheres of human activity, from new scientific discoveries to forecasting the weather for tomorrow.

Internet- a global network that unites many networks around the world, built on completely different principles.

The Internet connects computers and networks that operate according to different rules (having different architectures, system software, etc.). Therefore, to transfer information from one type of network to another, are used gateways(gateway) - devices (computers) used to combine networks with different exchange protocols. At the junction of the networks are located routers(router) - devices that define packet routes.

The Internet is built on the basis of an international protocol TCP / IP(Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol), which belongs to the group basic protocols (low-level). This protocol consists of two main network protocols:

IP(Internet Protocol) - Internet protocol (routing protocol, transport protocol). Defines the format of packets, the format of the addresses of computers on the network, the route of the packet, the rules for processing packets by routers and computers on the network.
TCP(Transmission Control Protocol) - data transmission control protocol. Ensures the reliability of data transmission and the assembly of all packets into a single message.

In addition to the basic protocols, there are applied protocols (high-level) responsible for the functioning of Internet services (HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, IMAP, etc.).

Data transfer protocol- a set of interface conventions logic level that define the exchange of data between different programs. These conventions define a uniform way of transmitting messages and handling errors when software interacts with spaced hardware connected by one or another interface.

Standardized data transfer protocol also allows you to develop interfaces (already at physical level), not tied to a specific hardware platform and manufacturer (for example, USB, Bluetooth).

Network protocol- a set of rules and actions (sequence of actions), which allows the connection and exchange of data between two or more devices connected to the network.

Different protocols often describe only different sides of one type of communication. The names "protocol" and "protocol stack" also refer to the software that implements the protocol.

New protocols for the Internet are defined by the IETF, and other protocols are defined by IEEE or ISO. ITU-T deals with telecommunication protocols and formats.

The most common classification system for network protocols is the so-called OSI model, according to which protocols are divided into 7 layers according to their purpose - from physical (formation and recognition of electrical or other signals) to application (application programming interface for transferring information by applications).

Network protocols prescribe the rules for computers that are connected to the network. They are built on a multi-level principle. A protocol of some level defines one of the technical rules of communication. Currently, the OSI (Open System Interconnection) model is used for network protocols.

The OSI model is a 7-layer logical model for how a network operates. The OSI model is implemented by a group of communication protocols and rules, organized in several layers:

· At the physical level, the physical (mechanical, electrical, optical) characteristics of communication lines are determined;

· At the data link layer, the rules for using the physical layer by network nodes are determined;

· The network layer is responsible for addressing and delivery of messages;

· The transport layer controls the order of passage of the message components;

· Session-level task - coordination of communication between two application programs running on different workstations;

· The presentation layer is used to convert data from the internal format of the computer to the transmission format;

· The application layer is the boundary between the application program and other layers - it provides a convenient interface for communication of the user's network programs.

Examples of network protocols[edit | edit source]

TCP / IP is a set of data transfer protocols, named after two protocols belonging to it: TCP (eng. Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (eng. Internet Protocol)

The most famous protocols used on the Internet:

· HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) is a hypertext transfer protocol. The HTTP protocol is used when transferring Web pages from one computer to another.

· FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a protocol for transferring files from a special file server to a user's computer. FTP allows the subscriber to exchange binary and text files with any computer on the network. Having established a connection with the remote computer, the user can copy the file from the remote computer to his own, or copy the file from his computer to the remote one.

· POP (Post Office Protocol) is a standard post office protocol. POP servers handle incoming mail, and POP is designed to handle requests to receive mail from client mailers.

· SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) - a protocol that defines a set of rules for mail transfer. The SMTP server returns either an acknowledgment or an error message, or requests additional information.

· Telnet is a remote access protocol. TELNET enables the subscriber to work on any computer on the Internet, as on his own, that is, launch programs, change the operating mode, and so on. In practice, the possibilities are limited by the access level set by the administrator of the remote machine.

Other protocols:

· DTN is a protocol designed to provide ultra-long distance space communications.

The newest book of facts. Volume 3 [Physics, chemistry and technology. History and archeology. Miscellaneous] Kondrashov Anatoly Pavlovich

How many computers are there in the world?

According to statistics published in the 2003 Annual Computer Industry Almanac, there are about 663 million personal computers in operation worldwide. But more than two thirds (448 million) are concentrated in 12 countries, the total population of which is less than a billion people, that is, 15.4 percent of all humanity. This list of a dozen countries includes (in descending order of number of computers) the United States, Japan, England, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Australia, Holland, Spain, Russia, and South Korea. Throwing away the United States, which has 31 percent of all personal computers in the world, the rest of the world has only 40 computers per 1,000 people.

This text is an introductory fragment. the author

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The analytical agency We Are Social and the largest SMM platform Hootsuite have jointly prepared a set of reports on the global digital market Global Digital 2018. According to the data presented in the reports, today more than 4 billion people use the Internet worldwide.

More than half of the world's population is now online, and about a quarter of a billion of them went online for the first time in 2017. The fastest growing is in Africa - the number of Internet users on the continent has increased by more than 20% compared to the same period last year.

Affordable smartphones and low-cost mobile Internet tariffs have become one of the key drivers of Internet audience growth this year. In 2017, more than 200 million people became mobile owners for the first time, and now two-thirds of the world's 7.6 billion people own a mobile phone.

More than half of the mobile devices in use today are classified as "smart", so it is becoming easier for people to access all the possibilities that the Internet has to offer, wherever they are.

The growth is also noted in the audience of social networks. In the past 12 months, the number of people on the most popular social platforms has increased daily by almost 1 million new users. More than 3 billion people interact with social media every month, and 9 out of 10 use their mobile devices.

The main findings of the reports are detailed below, but for now, here's a quick overview of the most significant digital metrics in 2018:

The number of Internet users in 2018 reached 4.021 billion people, which is 7% more compared to the same period last year.
The audience of social networks in 2018 totals 3.196 billion people, which is plus 13% to last year's figure.
5.135 billion people use mobile phones in 2018 - 4% more than a year ago.

So what does all this valuable piece of information say?

1. Billion years

This year, not only the number of Internet users has increased. The time people spend online has also increased over the past 12 months.

According to the latest data from GlobalWebIndex, the average Internet user today spends about 6 hours a day using devices and services that depend on an Internet connection. This, roughly speaking, is a third of the total waking time.

If you multiply this time by 4 billion of all Internet users, then you get a staggering figure - in 2018 we will spend a total of 1 billion years online.

2. Distribution of the future

As noted in last year's report, internet access is unevenly distributed across the world. In 2018, the situation is almost the same, but there are some shifts.

While Internet penetration remains low in much of Central Africa and South Asia, these regions have seen the most impressive online growth rates.

Internet users in Africa are up 20 percent from last year's data. In Mali, the number of people with internet access has increased almost 6-fold since January 2017. Online audiences in Benin, Sierra Leone, Niger and Mozambique have doubled over the past year.

It's not just another billion connected.

The spread of the Internet in developing countries will change the way people use the Internet around the world. This is because companies like Google, Facebook, Alibaba and Tencent are committed to offering scalable global products that meet the needs of these new users and the environment in which they go online. These changes will definitely have a significant impact on the future of the Internet.

3. Communication in motion

More than two thirds of people around the world today own a mobile phone, most of them own smartphones.

Over the year, the number of unique mobile users increased by more than 4 percent, although penetration rates remain below 50 percent in much of Central Africa.

People all over the world prefer to go online from smartphones. They generate more web traffic than all other devices combined.

Moreover, this data only relates to web use. Today, people spend 7 times more time on mobile apps than on mobile browsers, according to recent data from mobile app market research firm App Annie. This suggests that the share of mobile devices on the Internet is most likely even higher than the above figure.

The latest information from Facebook only confirms this assumption: only 5% of the global audience of the social network use the platform exclusively from the desktop.

4. Eleven new users per second

Over the past year, a little less than one million people have discovered social networks for the first time every day - more than 11 new users per second.

Saudi Arabia showed the highest growth rates among the 40 countries that became the objects of research - 32 percent. India lagged behind the leader slightly, the number of social media users increased by 31 percent over the year.

The growth was partly due to the fact that people of the older generation began to join social networks. On Facebook alone, the number of users aged 65 and over has increased by almost 20 percent in the past 12 months.

There are also more teenagers (13 to 17 years old) among the Facebook audience, but by only 5% since January 2017.

The gender ratio among Internet users remains uneven. For example, the latest data provided by Facebook suggests that there are still significantly fewer women online in much of Central Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

5. The Philippines holds the lead

True, the Brazilians are already breathing down the back of their heads. The Indonesians and Thais have overtaken the Argentines to take third and fourth places in this year's rankings.

6. Facebook still dominates

For Mark Zuckerberg and his team, 2017 was another good year, with impressive growth across all platforms owned by Facebook Inc.

The main site of the Facebook group continues to dominate social media, growing its user base by 15% over the year. At the beginning of the year, the social network has almost 2.17 billion profiles.

WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger both grew at twice the rate of mainstream Facebook in the past year. During the year, the number of users in each of the applications increased by 30 percent.

Although the audiences of these apps are roughly equal, judging by the latest data from SimilarWeb, WhatsApp has come out ahead in geographic reach. Today, WhatsApp is the top messenger in 128 countries, while Facebook Messenger leads in 72.

In only 25 countries around the world, the most popular messaging app is not Facebook's messenger.

Despite these impressive stats, Instagram has managed to surpass all Facebook apps in terms of growth in the past 12 months. The number of users here has increased by a third.

7. Organic reach continues to fall

Facebook organic reach and engagement (based on data for 179 countries) declined over the past year, with average reach down more than 10 percent from the previous year. Despite the depressing momentum, these numbers will provide valuable benchmarks for marketers around the world.

8. Increasing the speed of mobile Internet

The speed of data transmission in mobile networks is growing, this trend can be traced on a global scale. Analyst agency GSMA Intelligence reports that over 60% of mobile connections today are broadband.

However, there are significant differences in the speed of mobile communications in different countries. In Norway, the average download speed for mobile networks is 60 Mbps - almost three times faster than the world average.

Mobile Internet users from 6 countries, including the Netherlands, Singapore and the UAE, boast an average connection speed of over 50 Mbps. At the other end of the ranking are 18 countries, including India and Indonesia, where the average data transfer rate on mobile networks does not exceed 10 Mbps.

The good news is that average mobile data rates have increased by 30 percent over the past year.

This news can please not only the impatient. A faster connection helps reduce stress levels. Studies have shown that a few seconds of delay in video loading can cause anxiety levels to jump, just like watching a horror movie or solving a complex math problem.

Thanks in part to faster data rates, the average smartphone owner, regardless of where they live, uses almost 3GB of data every month, up 50% from last year.

9. A sharp rise in spending in online stores

The total online commerce market in the consumer goods sector grew by 16% over the past year, according to the latest data from analytics agency Statista in its digital market survey. Annual spending reached $ 1.5 trillion in 2017, with fashion products being the largest single category.

Globally, the number of people using e-commerce platforms to purchase consumer goods (such as fashion, food, electronics and toys) has grown by 8 percent. Nearly 1.8 billion people worldwide shop online today.

Approximately 45 percent of all Internet users shop on e-commerce sites, but the penetration rate of online commerce differs by country.

The receipt of each customer in the online trading segment is also growing. Compared to last year, the average revenue per user is up 7 percent to $ 833. The British spend most of all on online purchases - according to current data, in the UK more than $ 2,000 are spent per user annually.

It is worth emphasizing that these are figures for consumer goods only. If we add spending in other categories here, such as travel, digital content and mobile apps, the global e-commerce market is likely to be around US $ 2 trillion.

Internet in Russia 2018: the main figures

The Russian digital market follows global trends.

The most popular mobile application in Russia (both by audience and by the number of downloads) is WhatsApp, followed by Viber, VK and Sberbank Online. Instagram ranks fifth in the ranking in terms of the number of users and sixth in terms of the number of downloads (here it was surpassed by the Yula service from Mail.RU Group).
63% of domestic Internet users search online for goods and services, but only 46% make purchases. The largest spending is on travel and hotels ($ 7.903 billion, up 24% from last year), toys and hobbies ($ 4.175 billion), and fashion and beauty products ($ 4.783 billion).

Top Internet Trends 2018

The digital market will continue to gain traction in 2018, and despite this year's unprecedented growth, we see an uneven distribution of access to the opportunities that the global network has to offer. This creates a good basis for development and suggests that the digital market has definitely not reached the ceiling yet.

Moreover, this development cannot be called linear. There is a transformation of online consumption: Internet users are becoming more mobile, desktops are being systematically replaced by more convenient devices that can be carried. As a result, purchases smoothly flow online, the web is losing ground, yielding part of the traffic to applications, and social networks play a more significant role - this is valuable information for business.

These are the main findings of the research conducted by We Are Social and Hootsuite. It is difficult to say for sure what awaits us in a year, but it is obvious that the Internet will become even more firmly part of our daily life, changing the structure and ways of consuming information.

The rating, compiled on the basis of data from the International Telecommunications Union, based in Switzerland, reflects the situation with the provision of personal computers to residents of different countries of our planet at the beginning of the 21st century. And despite the fact that computer technology is progressing at a tremendous speed, technology is becoming cheaper and more accessible every year, the approximate trends reflected in this report may well be attributed to the modern publication of the situation.

So, the United States, despite the fact that it is leading in the total number of personal computers in the country, in terms of the relative number of PCs per capita was still in second place, yielding the palm to such a state as San Marino, in which due to the abundance of computer technology and a small population, there are as many as 727 computers for every thousand people. While in the US there are only 554, in other words, a little more than one computer for every two Americans.

The third place in the rating was taken by the country of victorious socialism Sweden - there, too, no one experiences any problems with computers - 506 cars for every thousand Swedes. The situation is similar in Denmark and Switzerland - 501 and 491 computers per thousand inhabitants, respectively.

In the seventh place among the most computerized powers in the world, right after Norway, they unexpectedly found themselves ... Bermuda - 465 computers per thousand islanders. The top ten is closed by Australia, Luxembourg and Singapore - 456, 440 and 421 computers, respectively. It is noteworthy that such an advanced country in the field of high technologies as Japan is only in 21st place with 314 computers for every thousand Japanese. And on the 26th place was Israel - 259 cars.

Of the republics of the former USSR, the best case with computerization is in the Baltics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania occupy 35.38 and 66 places respectively on the list. Russia occupies 78th place in this rating - exactly between Jamaica and Fiji. In the Russian Federation, there are 43.59 computers for every thousand inhabitants. Among other CIS countries, only Georgia and Ukraine were included in the list - in 95th and 100th places, respectively, with indicators of 22 and 18 computers per 1000 inhabitants. It is noteworthy that in terms of the total number of personal PCs in use, Russia is quite high on the list, at 13th place, although we still have these same computers 26 times less than in the United States.

There are also many computers in India and China - in terms of their absolute number, these countries occupy 4th and 16th places in the top100, but the population of these countries is so large that, in terms of thousands of inhabitants, the figure turns out to be very scanty, so neither China nor India is included in the list of hundreds the leading countries in terms of the number of PCs per capita were not included.

Experts predict that in the near future both lists - both the rating of the total number of computers in the country, and the rating of the relative number of machines in terms of the number of inhabitants in a particular state - should undergo significant changes. For there is no significant increase in the number of PCs in developed countries, almost all of them are already equipped with such technology, and the process of replacing outdated models with new ones is developing more actively. But in the rapidly developing, including in terms of computerization, countries, primarily in the Asian region, a completely different process is going on - equipping with computers those places where there were none before, therefore the increase in the total number of PCs here is much stronger, which will inevitably cause a change of leaders in the ranking, experts are inclined to believe that the picture will undergo dramatic changes in the next 8-10 years.