The analyst company IDC has reported that the worldwide traditional PC market finally returned to growth during the first quarter of 2024 with 59.8 million shipments. The growth that was recorded was 1.5% year-over-year and it’s the first time in years that growth has been recorded.
In the first quarter of 2023, the market declined 28.7% year-over-year, representing the lowest point in PC history. Aside from returning to growth this year, IDC says that volumes were finally back to pre-pandemic level., For comparison, the first quarter of 2019 saw 60.5 million units shipped.
In most parts of the world, inflation has been going down and as a result, PC shipments have begun to recover. IDC notes, however, that deflationary pressures in China have impacted the global PC market and in China, desktop PCs are in weak demand so there was another quarter of lower demand there for PCs.
Commenting on the news, Jitesh Ubrani from IDC said:
“Despite China"s struggles, the recovery is expected to continue in 2024 as newer AI PCs hit shelves later this year and as commercial buyers begin refreshing the PCs that were purchased during the pandemic. Along with growth in shipments, AI PCs are also expected to carry higher price tags, providing further opportunity for PC and component makers.”
IDC also has data about which OEMs performed the best. In the top place was Lenovo with 23% market share, then HP with 20.1% market share. Dell came in third at 15.5% market share and Apple followed with 8.1% market share. Finally, Asus was in fifth place with 6.1% market share.
Hopefully, the launch of new AI PCs and the retirement of Windows 10 next year will help to prop up PC sales. For anyone very resistant to upgrading yet, and unable to install Windows 11, there is the option of Google’s ChromeOS Flex or other Linux distributions. If you are looking for a Linux distribution that is very secure like ChromeOS but is a full desktop, then Fedora Silverblue is a good choice.
Source: IDC