As was evident in numerous companies’ third quarter financials, the worldwide PC industry is in freefall, suffering its fifth consecutive year-on-year decline.

Total shipments fell to 105.6 million units, a 14 per cent drop year-on-year. Sequentially, shipments are up by just one per cent on the June quarter, which saw massive disruption due to COVID lockdowns in China.

Apple is the only major company to post year-on-year growth for the quarter, up a modest 1.5 per cent, but topping overall shipments with 22 per cent market share and 23.4 million units shift in the three months.

With 19.4 million units shipped and an 18 per cent market share, Lenovo came in second, suffering from a massive 21 per cent year-on-year decline. This equalled Dell’s 21 per cent decline (although Dell shipped 10 million fewer units overall), but wasn’t as bad a freefall as HP’s 28 per cent drop in shipments.

Samsung posted shipments of 7.3 million units, with a 13 per cent decline.

“Demand across all product categories and end-user segments was stifled by worsening macroeconomic conditions, as consumers and businesses alike adopted a more cautious approach to spending on devices,” Canalys explains.