Canalys has published its report on the fourth and last quarter of 2022 PC market of the United States, where it is difficult to find the positive aspects. Indeed, on an annual basis the market contracted by 23% by number of units shipped (16.1 million), an average between -24% of notebooks and mobile workstations and -22% of desktops and fixed workstations.
Here, the positive thing is that the Tablet shipments have grown, albeit by a modest 2% over the same period last year but, underlines Canalys, in the face of an incentive from retailers who have stimulated demand with discounts and promotions during the Christmas holidays. Just enough it took for tablets to close the year evenly, while looking at computers the inevitable was not… avoided: 2022 closed with -18% compared to 2021.
For 2023 the forecasts are not any better. Demand as it has been for 2022 will continue to be weakened by inflation rates that will remain high and fears of a recession, prompting consumers to postpone non-essential purchases. Hence Canalys esteem that PC shipments will go down by 12% and tablet shipments by 15% in the United States, but expectations are not different in the rest of the world.
The PC market in the United States faces a prolonged period of decline due to inflation and a demand that returns after the pandemic records – explained Canalys analyst Brian Lynch. While consumer spending on PCs has been weak for several quarters, shipments to businesses took a bigger decline in the fourth quarter as companies struggled with high interest rates and budget cuts. After the rapid growth in demand for hybrid PCs in 2021 and early 2022, the commercial supply of new devices has largely been slowed or delayed.
Notable results include those of Dellsecond manufacturer by number of shipments in the last quarter of last year and first overall looking at the whole of 2022 thanks to hybrid work and reopening of offices, and of Applewhose shipments have hardly contracted (-1.1% in 2022, the second smallest drop is Acer’s 6.4%) due, analysts report, to the influence on Americans of Macs with M2 chips.
