International Data Corporation (IDC) released a new report on the sales performance of the global PC market, which includes desktops, notebooks and workstations. It mentions that sales continue to fall, more precisely by 29% in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same period of 2022.
It is worth remembering that this market trend was already noticed at the end of 2022, when the drop in PC shipments was 28%.
In detail, computer shipments reached 56.9 million units between January and March 2023, while in 2022 this number was 80.2 million.
In 2019 the total was 59.2 million, while in 2018 shipments reached 60.6 million units, showing the market may be returning to the “pre-coronavirus” state, as the pandemic has caused PC sales to increase due to the wide adoption of home office.
Among the largest computer manufacturers in the world, Apple is the one that presented the biggest drop, with a 40.5% reduction in sales. The ranking continues with Dell (-31%), Lenovo (30.3%) and ASUS (30.3%).
Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for Mobility Trackers and Consumer Devices at IDC, says that despite the negative results, the expectation is that the results will improve throughout the year.
While vendor shipments have slowed in recent months, it’s still well above the healthy range for the past four to six weeks. Even with heavy declines, channels and PC makers can expect rising sales to persist through the middle of the year and potentially into the third quarter.
In addition, IDC estimates that the drop in supplies is caused by factories that are looking for ways to produce outside of China, as pressure from the US to isolate it from the rest of the world is increasing.
Linn Huang, Vice President of Research for Devices and Displays at IDC, says Windows 11 should have a positive impact on this market:
By 2024, an installed base [de PCs] old will start to be updated. If the economy is trending upwards by then, we expect a significant market improvement as consumers look to upgrade, schools look to replace worn-out Chromebooks, and businesses move to Windows 11. If the recession in major markets drags on until the coming year, recovery may be a stumbling block.
In this way, we expect the market to improve, but for that to happen, the recession must be overcome in a large part of the world.
