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Global PC market witnessed significant growth in 2020, according to a recent report by Canalys.
Shipments of desktops, notebooks and workstations increased by 25 per cent in Q4 2020 from 2019, amounting to 90.3 million units as per the report.
However, these numbers do not include tablets.
“Ongoing strong demand in the holiday season led to a third consecutive quarter of sequential growth, with shipments in Q4 up 13 per cent over what was a stellar performance in Q3,” Canalys said in a release.
Also read: Lenovo expects 25-30 per cent growth this fiscal, to begin manufacturing tablets in India
The total PC shipments in 2020 grew 11 per cent, amounting to 297 million units.
“This represents the highest full-year growth since 2010 and the highest shipment volume since 2014. Worldwide PC market growth in 2020 was single-handedly driven by notebooks and mobile workstations,” as per the report.
Shipments of notebooks and mobile workstations witnessed a 25 per cent increase from 2019 to reach 235.1 million units. While desktop and desktop workstation shipments fell 22 per cent from 2019 to 61.9 million units in 2020.
Lenovo was the top player in the PC market in Q4 with record shipments of 23.1 million units and year-on-year growth of 29 per cent. The company’s total shipments for 2020 amounted to 72.6 million units with a market share of 24.5 per cent.
Top Players
Lenovo was followed by HP took in the annual rankings, with Q4 shipments of 19.1 million units and the total 2020 shipments of 67.6 million units, up 7 per cent over 2019.
Dell ended 2020 in the third place with its Q4 shipments up 27 per cent to cross 15-million for the first time in its history. Dell shipped 50.3 million units in total in 2020. Apple and Acer were at fourth and fifth place, shipping 22.6 and 20.0 million devices, respectively.
Also read: Dell launches PCs, monitors to facilitate work from home
These top five vendors accounted for 78.5 per cent of PC shipments in 2020, as per the report.
Future outlook
“The digital transformation the world has undertaken over the past year is unparalleled, and PCs were at the heart of this change,” said Rushabh Doshi, Canalys Research Director.
“It is going to be extremely difficult to write off the PC as some of us did a few years ago. PCs are here to stay,” added Doshi.
“2021 is shaping up to be an even more exciting year for PCs, with vendors and ecosystem players refusing to rest on their laurels as they compete for the new demand opportunities that have emerged in 2020,” said Ishan Dutt, Analyst at Canalys.
“Innovations in chipsets, operating systems, connectivity and form factors will take centrestage as the PC industry caters to a broader range of customers that bring with them new behaviours and use cases. While supply shortages continue to dampen the market in the short term, Canalys believes most wrinkles will be ironed out by the second half of 2021,” Dutt said.