A recession in the economy is marked by two successive quarters of economic decline, so it"s fair to say we"ve entered a PC recession as sales slumped for a second consecutive quarter. The analyst, IDC, said worldwide shipments of PCs fell by 15.3% compared to last year, down to 71.3 million units in the second quarter. The decline was worse than IDC expected, it pinned the blame on lockdowns in China and “macroeconomic headwinds” such as the war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, and inflation.
Commenting on the findings, Jitesh Ubrani from IDC said:
“Fears over a recession continue to mount and weaken demand across segments. Consumer demand for PCs has weakened in the near term and is at risk of perishing in the long term as consumers become more cautious about their spending and once again grow accustomed to computing across device types such as phones and tablets. Meanwhile, commercial demand has been more robust although it has also declined as businesses delay purchases.”
PC sales saw a big boost from March 2020 after countries were placed into lockdown as remote working became the default. With the return to the office, it would have been ordinary to see a fallback in PC sales, but with the wider economic woes, sales have fallen more than expected. It"s worth noting that despite the bad figures, PC sales are still above pre-pandemic levels during the same period. In 2018 and 2019, 62.1 million and 65.1 million units were sold respectively.
In the second quarter, Lenovo held 24.6% market share, putting it in first place. It was trailed by HP (18.9%), Dell (14%), Acer (6.9%), Apple (6.7%), and ASUS (6.6%). Year-over-year, the biggest losers were HP (-27.6%) and Apple (-22.5%). Apple being among the biggest decliners is interesting, given the loyalty of its customers. The decline possibly suggests people are avoiding its higher-priced computers.