The PC market took a nosedive in Q4 2022, with shipments plummeting by a staggering 28% YoY, as per estimates by Gartner and IDC. That’s the steepest quarterly decline ever recorded by Gartner, since it began tracking the computer market in the 90s. And it’s not just the quarterly numbers, even the yearly shipments for 2022 saw a 16% drop compared to the previous year.
The big players in the market, Lenovo, HP, and Dell, didn’t escape the impact either, with their shipments tumbling between 29-37%. And it’s not just them, even Acer saw a 41% hit. The only one with a relatively light blow was Apple, but even they saw a 10% drop in shipments.
The reason? The pandemic led to a surge in PC sales in 2021 as people continued to work from home, but as people started returning to offices, the interest waned. The worsening global economy didn’t help matters either, with people having less money to spend on upgrades.
But before you hit the panic button, remember that even with these sharp drops, the shipments in 2022 were still “well above” pre-pandemic figures, as per IDC. However, the market still looks grim and the analysts don’t expect a recovery until 2024, with only “pockets of opportunity” in 2023. PC makers will have to hope that new designs and price cuts will sustain interest for the next year.
