Gartner Reveals that worldwide PC shipments declined to 65.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2022, down 28.5 percent from the fourth quarter of 2021.
That’s the biggest quarterly shipment decline since Gartner started tracking the PC market in the mid-1990s. For the full year, PC shipments reach 286.2 million units in 2022, down 16.2 percent from 2021.
At the same time, high PC inventory levels started building up during the first half of 2022 and became a bottleneck for the PC market. Low PC supply turned into a lot of supply due to high demand and supply chain disruptions through 2021, when demand picked up sharply and slowed significantly.
Gartner director analyst Mikako Kitagawa cited increased inflation and a general economic slowdown as reasons for the decrease.
“Fears of a global recession, increased inflation and higher interest rates have had a major impact on PC demand,” Kitagawa said. “Since many consumers already have relatively new PCs that were purchased during the pandemic, the lack of affordability is undermining any motivation to buy, causing consumer PC demand to drop to its lowest level in years “
The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged in the fourth quarter of last year. Lenovo maintained its number one position in shipments. However, it was the biggest decline since Gartner started tracking the PC market. Its shipments declined in all regions except Japan, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Latin America declined by more than 30 percent.
HP and Dell also experienced historically steep declines. HP shipments were down 44 percent year-on-year, and Dell saw weaker demand in the large business market, affecting shipments in the second half of 2022.
“The PC industry has experienced very unusual ups and downs over the past 11 years. After a period of extraordinary growth between 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, the market has clearly begun a downward trend that is set to peak in early 2024. Will continue till, Kitagawa said,
