What JP Morgan Thinks of Apple, HP, and Microsoft's PC, Tablet Businesses

JP Morgan analysts slashed their outlook for sales of PCs and tablets in 2015 in what mirrors a continuing spiral of lower and lower sales. Year over year, JP Morgan estimated that PC sales declined 6.1 percent, down sharply from its prior estimate of a 1.9 percent decline. That steep drop will be felt most heavily in desktop, which will decline 11.1 percent, compared with a 2.4 percent decline in notebooks.

In tablets, JP Morgan said that Q4 sales came in 6 percent below its estimate, causing the firm to cut 2015 tablet shipments by 1 percent. The analysts pegged tablet sales at 235 million, though they noted that number could grow if Apple Inc. AAPL launches iAnywhere, which would allow mobile devices to function as full-blown computers.

In PCs, JP Morgan said that Hewlett-Packard Company HPQ leads in the North American consumer and Western Europe business and consumer segments. In North America, HP has a 34 percent market share amongst consumers, compared with a 20 percent share for Dell. Among North American business purchases, Dell leads the segment with 28 percent share.

In the computing space, the strong area continues to be servers. JP Morgan said that server growth continues and forecasted year-over-year gains of 1.8 percent, up marginally from 1.7 percent prior estimates.

Strong sales in the server arena may be propping up Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO and International Business Machines Corp. IBM this year. Both stocks have gained near 3 percent year-to-date, while HP and Microsoft Corporation MSFT have declined 16.5 and 7.5 percent, respectively. Apple has stayed bid this year amid strong iPhone sales, gaining 16.5 percent.