Sales for personal computers will fall by double digits for the first time in history during 2009, according to the analyst firm Gartner.

Gartner expects shipments of PCs to tumble 12 percent year-over-year to 257 million units. The previous low dip in sales followed the dot-com bust in 2001, when shipments fell 3.2 percent.

“The PC industry is facing extraordinary conditions as the global economy continues to weaken, users stretch PC lifetimes and PC suppliers grow increasingly cautious,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner, in a statement.

Gartner’s forecast only confirms what many people watching the PC market have expected.

Companies like Intel, Nvidia, Seagate, Advanced Micro Devices and Western Digital have witnessed sharp drop-offs in sales. And last month Hewlett-Packard reported a 19 percent drop in PC sales, while Dell reported a 27 percent drop in desktop sales and a 17 percent drop in notebook sales.

Gartner expects a whopping 32 percent decline in desktop sales next year, while sales of laptops are predicted to rise 9 percent.

Sales of netbooks account for much of the interest in laptops, according to Gartner. Excluding netbooks, sales of mobile computers should rise just 3 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, Gartner expects netbook sales to reach 21 million units in 2009, almost doubling from 11.7 million units last year.

I discussed some of these trends in an article published Monday that looks at the areas where Microsoft and Intel hope to expand beyond the PC.

< Back to Mobile PC Trends articles