Since research company Gartner started monitoring the market in the middle of the 1990s, global Personal Computer shipments have fallen at their highest rate.
According to the analyst’s statistics, Personal Computer shipments totalled 68 million units in the third quarter of 2022, a 19.5% decline from the third quarter of 2021.
Since sales have been dropping for some time, this quarter marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which they have decreased globally.
Why did it drop?
The decrease was attributed by Mikako Kitagawa, Director Analyst at Gartner, to “a lack of demand since many consumers had purchased new Personal Computers in the last two years.”
On the corporate side, she added, “geopolitical and economic uncertainty led to more selective IT spending, and Personal Computers were not at the top of the priority list.”
The third quarter saw a 26.4% year-over-year loss in the EMEA Personal Computer market, which fell to 17 million units, the most significant decline of any region. Following a spike at the beginning of the pandemic, this is the negative third quarter for the EMEA Personal Computer market, according to Gartner.
According to Mikako Kitagawa, “many causes, including difficult macroeconomic conditions, diminishing corporate and consumer demand, and large levels of inventory, contributed to considerable deterioration in the EMEA Personal Computer market.”
Additionally, many Personal Computer vendors shut down operations in Russia in the first two quarters of this year, negatively influencing overall sales. This is especially evident when comparing year-over-year comparisons.
The third quarter of 2022 saw a 17.3% fall in US Personal Computer shipments, the fifth quarter of year-over-year shipping loss.
The entire US market declined due to sluggish laptop sales, but the desktop market grew modestly due to pent-up demand from corporations and purchases made by the public sector.
According to Mikako Kitagawa, the largest worry in the US market is inflation, but he also noted that “smaller enterprises are displaying relative optimism about macroeconomic conditions.”
Manufacturers don’t appear to have been equally harmed by the decline in PC sales. According to Gartner, Acer’s sales dropped the most among all the manufacturers, at 23.7% year over year.
Lenovo and HP came next, with respective sales declines of 22.8% and 23.3%.
With a decline of just 5.8%, Apple’s sales fared the best out of all the manufacturers.