Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a context of high inflation, which translates into a drop in consumption. After the COVID-19 pandemic boosted PC sales, a market analyst IDC He is now pessimistic about 2023, which is just around the corner.
IDC estimated that PC shipments to decline 12.8% to total 305.3 million units by 2022, while for tablets the decline would be approximately 6.8% to 156.8 million. The company estimated it the combined market for tablets and PCs (desktops, laptops and workstations) will experience a further decline of 2.6 percent in 2023 to then start returning in 2024.
The analyst firm calculated in July that global shipments in the second quarter of 2022 fell 15.3% year-on-year to a total of 71.3 million units. IDC acknowledged that the data ended up being worse than it predicted.
IDC attributes the drop in shipments in 2022 to the above inflation, the weakening of the world economy and the increase in sales recorded in previous years, so apart from some pockets penalized by inflation, there would now be a significant percentage of users who have no need to buy a new computer. The education sector now sees no reason to buy more equipment and companies have reduced their demand due to the current macroeconomic context, which is not expected to improve in the coming months.
Linn Huang, vice president of devices and displays research at IDC, noted that an economic recovery around the time of the next major recovery cycle could support growth, but that the peaks seen in the pandemic would be barely reached, even if current levels remain. over the pre-pandemic period. Additionally, they expect the market to revolve more around premium products, which tend to be more focused on professionals and gamers.
As we said before, IDC is hoping to get things going rise in 2024 with total deliveries of 477.7 million unitsof which 269.3 million would be accumulated by final consumers, 63.6 million by the business sector, 75.9 million by small and medium-sized enterprises and 69 million by the public sector.
Another factor motivating IDC’s relative optimism is the end of the Windows 10 cycle, which in its Home and Pro versions is scheduled for 2025. This, together with the high requirements of Windows 11, will force the renewal of many computers in companies and institutions for support and security issues, unless they want to risk it by migrating to Linux or ChromeOS Flex.
IDC’s calculations and projections are in line with others recently published by Canalys, which for the above reasons estimated a year-on-year decline of 18% in the second quarter of 2022, in the context of an economic crisis where As inflation rises alarmingly, people prefer to have money they can save in their pocket.
