IDC: Global PC shipments up for sixth straight quarter

Deliveries of desktops, laptops and workstations rose for the sixth consecutive quarter. This is reported by analyst firm IDC. However, the PC sector still suffers from supply and logistics problems.

According to IDC, 86.7 million PCs were shipped in the third quarter of this year. The analyst firm includes desktops, laptops and workstations by this. This is an increase of 3.9 percent compared to the same period in 2020. The PC market has been growing strongly since the start of the corona pandemic in early 2020.

“The PC industry continues to be hampered by supply and logistics challenges and, unfortunately, there has been little improvement in these issues in recent months,” writes an IDC research manager. Therefore, certain suppliers would refocus their supply priorities across different market segments. Therefore, according to IDC, certain ’emerging markets’ would maintain their growth momentum, while the growth of other markets would slow down.

Among the largest PC vendors, Dell grew the fastest in the past quarter. That company shipped about 15.2 million devices in the third quarter of 2021. That is an increase of 26.6 percent compared to the same quarter last year. Apple shipments increased 9.9 percent in the same period and shipments from ASUS, Lenovo and Acer also increased. Shipments of HP PCs fell 5.8 percent, IDC reports.

The PC market in the US is said to have contracted slightly for the first time since the start of the pandemic. This is due to supply chain bottlenecks and logistical issues, according to IDC. Demand for PCs is also said to have fallen slightly in the United States, after “a year of accelerated purchases” driven by work-from-home and home-schooling. Despite this decline, stocks are still below demand in many market segments, the analyst firm concludes.

IDC reported last month that the chip market also continues to grow. The analyst firm wrote that semiconductor manufacturers are currently deploying nearly 100 percent of their production capacity. IDC expects that the supply and demand for chips will be ‘normalized and balanced’ again by mid-2022. By the end of 2022, “large-scale capacity expansions” will come online at major semiconductor manufacturers such as TSMC and Samsung, according to the analyst firm. Therefore, there could be overcapacity in the chip sector in 2023.

Growth in the PC market and the market share of the largest manufacturers. Images via IDC