A new report on Wednesday revealed that PC shipments worldwide declined 30 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 year-on-year (YoY).
According to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc., an unfavorable combination of oversupply and continued low PC demand due to economic uncertainties and a lack of purchase motivation led to the second consecutive quarter of historic year-over-year decline.
This number is similar to IDC’s report on PC shipments in the first quarter, which mentioned that global PC shipments has contracted 29 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2022.
“PC pricing pressures intensified during the quarter as vendors offered considerable discounts to clear inventory,” said Mikako Kitagawa, Director Analyst at Gartner. “To drive demand, vendors temporarily reduced average selling prices (ASPs) of PCs already in the channels, but ASPs of new PCs shipping into the channels remained elevated due to inflation-driven supply chain cost increases.”
During the quarter, the Gartner report found that the top vendors in worldwide PC market remained unchanged in the first quarter of 2023, with Lenovo maintaining the #1 spot in shipments with 23.3 per cent market share.
Lenovo recorded the steepest annual shipment decline in its corporate history over two quarters. While the US was a particularly challenging market for Lenovo, the company had modest growth in Japan driven by end of fiscal year PC purchases.
This was the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit shipment decline for HP. HP shipments in EMEA dropped by 37 per cent compared to a year ago but declined less steeply in the US market.
Meanwhile, Dell saw its fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline. Asia Pacific was its hardest-hit market, with shipments down by over 40 per cent. Dell’s decline was largely driven by the weak business PC market, the report mentioned.
Region-wise, the US PC market declined 25.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2023. While the US economic outlook in the first quarter of 2023 was better than initially anticipated, particularly for consumer spending, it did not significantly impact PC sales as consumers opted to spend their money elsewhere.
The EMEA PC market experienced a significant decline of 35.9 per cent compared with a year ago, with shipment volumes for the whole region falling below the total US shipment volume.
“The continued impact of political unrest, inflationary pressures, interest rate increases and a pending recession has culminated in another massive decline in the EMEA PC market,” said Kitagawa. “None of the top six vendors were immune from the collapse, all losing more than a third of their shipment volumes year-over-year.”
The Asia Pacific PC market also had a significant decline, with China suffering the most due to high inventory in the channel and weak demand. Outside of China, the PC market was also weak due to inflation, increasing interest rates and local currency depreciation.
“However, countries including India and Vietnam fared slightly better due to the shift of manufacturing sites and business operations out of China, as enterprises tried to diversify to reduce over-reliance on China as a single production source. The Japanese market saw a relatively moderate decline at 9.8 per cent compared to other regions,” mentioned the Gartner report.
