Ukraine war and supply chain issues hit demand.

 

Worldwide PC shipments declined by 12.6 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, the sharpest decline in nine years for the global PC market, exacerbated by geopolitical, economic and supply chain challenges impacting all regional markets.

 

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

 

 “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,” Kitagawa said.

 

The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market experienced declines in PC shipments in the second quarter of 2022, but their ranking remained unchanged. 

 

The combination of HP declining 27.5 per cent and Dell declining 5.2 per cent allowed Dell to move to within 0.3 percentage points of HP in market share. Apple was the only vendor to experience growth in the second quarter of 2022, driven by the popularity of the M1 device. 

 

Lenovo’s worldwide PC shipments declined year-over-year, the third consecutive quarter of decline for the company. However, Lenovo grew two per cent in the worldwide desktop PC market, partly because the company improved its supply chain in EMEA. HP experienced a decline of 27.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, primarily due to a steep decrease in Chromebooks shipments.

 

Regional overview

The American PC market declined 17.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2022. Although the market experienced shipment growth in both desktop PCs and laptops (excluding Chromebooks), this growth was offset by a 50 per cent year-on-year decline in Chromebook shipments

 

Dell secured the top spot in the US PC market based on shipments with 27.2 per cent market share. Despite a decline of 43.5 per cent, HP took the second position with 22.3 per cent market share.

 

The Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market declined 5.2 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, driven by a 16 per cent decline in the China PC market. 

 

China’s zero COVID-19 policy dramatically impacted the economy with lockdowns in Shanghai stopping carriers and logistics and any online orders and delivery in Shanghai during the time.