Firstly, what these two research firms do agree on is there was strong demand for PCs including desktops, notebooks, and workstations, in Q121.
What they don’t agree on is by much the demand grew.
IDC puts the figure at 55.2 percent – while Gartner puts it at 32 percent.
PC shipments reached 84 million worldwide in Q1/21 according to IDC. Gartner’s preliminary results found worldwide PC shipments totalled 69.9 million units in the same period.
They both agree that Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple and Acer make up the top five. But shipment numbers vary by as much as several thousand in some cases. For example, IDC has HP shipping 19,237 units while Gartner’s tally for the same company is 14,963.
The answer may be that Gartner does not include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results. It says Chromebook shipments grew by triple digits in the period.
Including Chromebooks, the total worldwide PC market grew 47 percent year-over-year, Gartner says – a touch closer to IDC’s figures.
