The PC market grew 14.8% in 2021, delivery the most important variety of desktops, laptops, and workstations in a single yr since 2012, in response to knowledge tracker IDC.
Shipments had been up over 34% from the business’s low level in 2017, to 349 million models, in response to preliminary knowledge supplied by IDC.
It is a noteworthy restoration for a sector that had been written off by tech buyers and operators as a sleepy discipline in decline as not too long ago as just a few years in the past as smartphones grew to become a very powerful and highest-volume product within the electronics enterprise.
The restoration has been pushed by lockdowns and the rise in distant work and studying in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, as households bought new laptops and PCs for schoolchildren in digital courses and companies purchased gear for workers working from dwelling.
The restoration additionally occurred in a yr that was marked by short-term shortages in PCs, particularly in the course of the fall, pushed by provide constraints from a worldwide chip scarcity.
Some observers cautioned that the gross sales tempo wouldn’t be sustainable after the pandemic ebbs. In December, for instance, IDC stated the market had pulled handed peak pandemic demand and forecast a slowdown in 2022.
However some market members stay optimistic that PC gross sales will proceed on their present trajectory.
“We’re going from one PC per family to 1 PC per particular person per family, which is the smartphone mannequin.”
Rahul Tikoo
Senior VP, Dell Consumer Product Group
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger stated in an October interview that he believes the PC market is on a brand new upward path that’s sustainable. Intel is the main maker of central processors for desktops and laptops with about 80% market share.
“We do suppose the PC enterprise is now simply structurally bigger. [It’s a] million-unit-a-day form of enterprise now,” Gelsinger stated.
Dell government Rahul Tikoo echoed that sentiment, saying the pandemic has pushed a everlasting shift in shopping for conduct now that everybody wants their very own PC.
“We’re going from one PC per family to 1 PC per particular person per family, which is the smartphone mannequin,” stated Tikoo, senior vice chairman for Dell’s Consumer Product Group. “I believe PCs are are in the midst of transitioning to that now.”
The six largest PC corporations by variety of models shipped in 2021 had been Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, Asus, and Acer, in response to IDC.
Microsoft, which sells the Home windows working system used on the overwhelming majority of PCs, is one other main beneficiary of the PC growth.
Though the software program large has shifted its focus to cloud providers like Azure in recent times, Home windows remains to be a large enterprise, producing $5.68 billion in gross sales within the third quarter, a rise of 10% from the year-earlier interval.