Two Prominent Market Researchers See Growth in Global PC Sales

Two market researchers have issued reports quantifying the growth of PC sales at a global level.

According to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, worldwide shipments reached 64.9 million units in the second quarter of 2024 (2Q24), representing year-over-year growth of 3.0%. While the overall market benefited from favorable comparisons to 2023, weak results in China continued to hold the market back. Excluding China, worldwide shipments grew more than 5% year over year.

“Make no mistake, the PC market just like other technology markets faces challenges in the near term due to maturity and headwinds,” said group vice president Ryan Reith. “However, two consecutive quarters of growth, combined with plenty of market hype around AI PCs and a less sexy but arguably more important commercial refresh cycle, seems to be what the PC market needed. The buzz is clearly around AI, but a lot is happening with non-AI PC purchasing to make this mature market show signs of positivity.”

In recent months, most of the industry players have laid out their initial strategies for AI PCs focusing primarily on the component side and the potential of the commercial market. While IDC believes the commercial market has the biggest short-term upside for AI in the PC industry, the consumer story has yet to be told in full. All eyes are on Apple to drive that message later this year with anticipated product launches, but it shouldn’t be overlooked that Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD are all likely to make noise around both consumer and commercial AI PCs, according to IDC.

Meanwhile, Canalys shows gathering momentum in Q2 2024, with worldwide shipments of desktops and notebooks up 3.4% year-on-year, reaching 62.8 million units. Shipments of notebooks (including mobile workstations) hit 50 million units, growing 4%. Desktops (including desktop workstations), which constitute 20% of the total PC market, experienced a slight 1% growth, totaling 12.8 million units. The stage is now set for accelerated growth as the refresh cycle driven by the Windows 11 transition and AI PC adoption ramps up over the next four quarters, according to Canalys.

The market researcher says that PC (excluding tablets) shipments to the United States grew 5% year-on-year to 14.8 million units in Q1 2024. The consumer and SMB segments were the key growth drivers, both witnessing shipment increases above 9% year-on-year in the first quarter. With a strong start to the year, the market is now poised for a healthy recovery trajectory amid the ongoing Windows refresh cycle. Total PC shipments to the US are expected to hit 69 million units in 2024 before growing another 8% to 75 million units in 2025.

“The PC industry is going from strength to strength with a third consecutive quarter of growth,” said Ishan Dutt, Principal Analyst at Canalys. “The market turnaround is coinciding with exciting announcements from vendors and chipset manufacturers as their AI PC roadmaps transition from promise to reality.”

Channel Impact^®
The data point to an opportunity for channel partners to add PCs as an enhancement to larger engagements as well as for contracts related to PCs only.