Global sales of PCs have dropped at the fastest rate in nine years, Gartner says

The technological research and consulting firm Gartner has reported that the worldwide PC market has declined by 12.6 per cent and that EMEA PC shipments have dropped 18 per cent in the second quarter.

Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner said: “The decline we saw in the first quarter of 2022 has accelerated in the second quarter, driven by the ongoing geopolitical instability caused by the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, inflationary pressure on spending and a steep downturn in demand for Chromebooks."

"Supply chain disruptions also continued, but the major cause of PC delivery delays changed from component shortages to logistics disruptions. Enterprise buyers continued to experience longer PC delivery times than usual, but the lead times began to improve by the end of the second quarter, partially because key cities in China reopened in the middle of the quarter."

“To maintain profits as inflation increases costs, the PC industry is having to raise average selling prices (ASPs) despite weakening demand. The reduction in the mix of PCs from Chromebooks, which tend to have low price points, and shift to premium products also helped increase the average ASP. However, an increase in inventory, especially in the consumer channel, could cause an ASP decline as vendors will try to lower inventory.”

According to Gartner, while Apple experienced shipment growth with both desktop PCs and laptops, the overall market has declined due to a 50 per cent year-on-year decline in Chromebook shipments, as well as falling demand for other brands, such as Lenovo whose shipments were down 12.5 per cent to 17.863 million units, HP which was down 27.5 per cent to 13.5 million, and Dell which was down 5.2 per cent to 13.298 million.

The Europe, Middle East, and Africa region was the worst performing in the quarter, with PC shipments down 18 per cent to 17.8 million devices.