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The PC market, as expected, returned to growth last quarter after a two-year decline , which is confirmed by reports from leading analytical agencies IDC and Canalys: in the first quarter of 2024, about 60 million computers were sold worldwide (1.5% more than a year ago).
What is the situation on the PC market
There are minor differences in the calculations of IDC and Canalys, but both teams recorded positive dynamics. This was largely contributed to… decline in the first quarter of 2023, when the PC market contracted 28.7% and hit its lowest point on record. In fact, global PC sales have returned to pre-pandemic levels – to the results of the 1st quarter of 2019, when 60.5 million computers were sold. In other words, the PC market has actually rolled back 5 years.
Regarding the structure, according to Canalys, shipments of laptops (together with mobile workstations) grew by 4.2% to 45.1 million units, while desktop PCs (+ desktop workstations) actually remained the same the same level, decreasing by only 0.4% to 12.1 million units.
Against the backdrop of declining inflation, PC sales began to recover in all key regions – the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). At the same time, deflationary pressures in China, the largest market, affected the entire global PC market – and the desktop segment, which had shrunk significantly amid the rise in popularity of laptops, shrank by another 25%.
Top 5 largest PC manufacturers
The top five remained unchanged, only Acer and ASUS changed in recent months. China's Lenovo is still the world's largest PC supplier, but the difference between Lenovo and US HP in terms of sales is relatively small: 13.7 and 12.0 million computers. But in terms of growth (+14.6%), Apple was (again) ahead of everyone, so the updated MacBook Pro M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max are obviously selling well along with other models. At the end of the first quarter, only ASUS and Dell in the top five saw sales decline. The rest either increased or, like HP, remained at the same level.
What's next
Analysts agree that the positive trend will continue throughout the year, despite weak demand in China – this will primarily be driven by the new PC upgrade cycle and the transition to Windows 11 (it's time to upgrade PCs purchased earlier during the pandemic ), as well as the emergence of new AI PCs. Canalys predicts that during 2024, vendors will ship almost 50 million computers with artificial intelligence – that is, they will have a separate integrated AI unit, for example NPU
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