1 billion PCs but 180 million will be dumped this year

New Gartner report says that the number of installed PCs globally has gone past the 1 billion units figure, and is heading for 2 billion by 2014. Worryingly though, 180 million PCs will be replaced this year, 35 million in landfill with no thought for the environmental impact. Gartner has published its 'Forecast: PC Installed Base, Worldwide, 2004-2012' report which reveals the worldwide installed base of PCs as being 1 billion units. That is the number of PCs actually in use, rather than the more arbitrary metric of the number of units shipped over any given period.