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Global PC sales notched their worst recorded quarterly decline ever over the holiday season with Apple Inc. suffering the least as analysts agree the recovery in the market has been pushed out to 2024.
Gartner said global PC shipments fell 28.5% to 65.3 million units in the fourth quarter, marking “the largest quarterly shipment decline since Gartner began tracking the PC market in the mid-1990s.” That was worse than the previous worst that was the third quarter.
For the year, PC shipments fell 16.2% to 286.2 million units in 2022, according to Gartner.
Broken down by company, Gartner’s number were similar to rival firm International Data Group’s tabulations that were released late Tuesday, with the usual exception to how the firms calculate Apple Inc.
AAPL,
shipments. While IDC said Apple shipments only slipped 2.1% to 7.5 million units, Gartner said shipments declined 10.2% to 7 million units.
IDC and Gartner disagreed on Apple’s performance regularly in 2022, with IDC seeming to come closer to the results Apple eventually reported. In the third quarter, for instance, Gartner tracked a 15.6% decline in Apple’s PC shipments while IDC reported a 40% increase; Apple eventually reported a record sales quarter for Macs, with revenue increasing roughly 24%.
Gartner and IDC were closer on projections for other manufacturers. Gartner reported that Lenovo Group Ltd.’s
992,
shipments fell 28.6% to 15.6 million units from a year ago, HP Inc.
HPQ,
shipments dropped 29.1% to 13.2 million units, Dell Technologies Inc.
DELL,
shipments sunk 37% to 10.9 million, and Asustek Computer Inc.
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shipments fell 19.8% to 4.9 million units.
“The anticipation of a global recession, increased inflation and higher interest rates have had a major impact on PC demand,” said Mikako Kitagawa, director analyst at Gartner. “Since many consumers already have relatively new PCs that were purchased during the pandemic, a lack of affordability is superseding any motivation to buy, causing consumer PC demand to drop to its lowest level in years.”
For more: PC market in ‘steepest’ fall since data started being collected in mid-1990s, analysts agree
“PC demand among enterprises began declining in the third quarter of 2022, but the market has now shifted from softness to deterioration,” Kitagawa said. “Enterprise buyers are extending PC life cycles and delaying purchases, meaning the business market will likely not return to growth until 2024.”
IDC had reported global PC shipments fell 28.1% to 67.2 million units in the fourth quarter from a year ago, with annual shipments falling 16.5% to 292.3 million units.
“Average selling prices across many channels also fell as excess channel inventory over the course of the past few months triggered discounting in an effort to spur demand,” said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager for IDC, said in a statement.
Much of the past year’s slowdown reflects a tough comparison to 2021, which posted some of the best numbers in about a decade, as companies stocked up on work-from-home infrastructure and consumers upgraded for school and work.
“Consecutive quarters of declines clearly paint a gloomy picture of the PC market, but this is really all about perception,” said Ryan Reith, group vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. “We firmly believe the market has the potential to recover in 2024 and we also see pockets of opportunity throughout the remainder of 2023.”
In-depth: The pandemic PC boom is over, but its legacy will live on
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