PC sales start to slow after two years of pandemic-driven growth

Dell Applied sciences

Following two years of double-digit progress, international shipments of non-public computing units declined 5% within the first quarter of 2022, in line with analysis carried out by the analyst home IDC.

Even with international gross sales slowing to begin the yr, distributors nonetheless shipped 80.5 million laptop computer, desktop, pocket book and workstation units through the first quarter of 2022, marking the seventh consecutive quarter the place international shipments surpassed 80 million. That’s the longest sustained interval of greater than 80 million international PC shipments since 2012.

The highest distributors out there have remained unchanged for the reason that fourth quarter of 2021, with Lenovo holding a 23% market share. At Cell World Congress earlier this yr, the firm introduced a bunch of latest ThinkPad, IdeaPad and pill units, all aimed toward higher enabling distant and hybrid working.

HP and Dell Applied sciences each skilled double-digit market progress share this quarter too, at 20% and 17% respectively. Apple have been ranked fourth by IDC’s tracker and fifth place was shared by ASUS and Acer.

The analysis additionally discovered that, partly as a consequence of ongoing provide chain shortages, pocket book PCs noticed a year-over-year decline, whereas desktops grew barely. Dell, Apple, and ASUS have been the one main distributors that noticed year-over-year cargo progress.

Commenting on the outcomes, Ryan Reith, group vice chairman for IDC's worldwide cell machine trackers, mentioned that the main focus “should not be on the year-over-year decline in PC volumes, as a result of that was to be anticipated” however fairly the flexibility for the trade to nonetheless handle to ship greater than 80 million PCs “at a time when logistics and provide chain are nonetheless a large number, accompanied by quite a few geopolitical and pandemic-related challenges."

Jay Chou, analysis supervisor for IDC's quarterly PC monitor tracker echoed his ideas, noting that “other than business spending on PCs, there are nonetheless rising markets the place demand had been uncared for within the earlier intervals of the pandemic, and better finish client demand additionally has held up.”