Falling demand for personal computers continued during the fourth quarter of 2022, as global shipments declined 28.1 per cent from the previous year.
According to the International Data Corporation’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, 67.2 million PCs were shipped during the quarter.
As IDC explains, this retraction is similar to that experienced in the fourth quarter of 2018, when the market was constrained by Intel’s supply challenges.
Despite the poor fourth quarter, annual shipments for 2022 were “well above pre-pandemic levels”, with 292.3 million units for the full year. This is down 16.5 per cent on 2021.
“Average selling prices (ASPs) across many channels also fell as excess channel inventory over the course of the past few months triggered discounting in an effort to spur demand,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.
“Despite these efforts, inventory management of finished PCs as well as components will remain a key issue in the coming quarters and has the potential to further affect ASPs.”
“Consecutive quarters of declines clearly paint a gloomy picture of the PC market, but this is really all about perception,” said Ryan Reith, group vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers.
“2021 was near historic levels for PC shipments, so any comparison is going to be distorted. There’s no question when we look back at this time that the rise and fall of the PC market will be one for the record books, but plenty of opportunity still lies ahead.
“We firmly believe the market has the potential to recover in 2024 and we also see pockets of opportunity throughout the remainder of 2023.”