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PC market braces for a decline as pandemic-driven sales boost fizzles out
Demand for personal computers appears to be running out of steam, with analysts saying today they predict a steady decline in shipments for the rest of the year.
The PC market got a huge kick from the COVID-19 pandemic. That led to millions of professionals and students upgrading their PCs over the last year in pursuit of faster and more capable devices to work at home with.
However, that impetus now appears to be on the wane, the latest figures from International Data Corp. show. In its quarterly Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker published today, IDC said PC shipments hit 83.6 million units in the second quarter, up 13.2% from the same period one year ago.
Although that looks healthy, the 13% growth rate is a lot less than the 55.9% growth rate seen during the first quarter. Analysts say demand is likely to tail off from here as consumer spending priorities begin to shift.
“The market faces mixed signals as far as demand is concerned,” said Neha Mahajan, senior research analyst with IDC’s Devices and Displays Group. “With businesses opening back up, demand potential in the commercial segment appears promising. However, there are also early indicators of consumer demand slowing down as people shift spending priorities after nearly a year of aggressive PC buying.”
IDC defines PCs as desktops, notebooks and workstation, but doesn’t count tablets or x86 servers.
The analyst firm said China’s Lenovo Group Ltd. remains the world’s top PC vendor with a 25.2% share of the market, followed by HP Inc. in second with 22.2% and Dell Technologies Inc. in third with 16.7% of all sales. Apple Inc., with its Mac computers, and Acer Group round out the top five.
Gartner Inc., which published its own PC numbers today, has more or less the same definition of a PC except that it omits Chromebooks from its calculations. Thus, it offered a more conservative tally of 71.6 million total PC shipments in the first quarter, up just 4.6% from the same period one year ago. Like IDC, Gartner is also forecasting slower PC growth for the rest of the year.
Photo: Goumbik/Pixabay
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