PC shipments. Worldwide PC shipments up 32% in first quarter of 2021: Gartner

Worldwide PC shipments increased by 32 per cent from the first quarter of 2020 to 69.9 million units in the first quarter of 2021, according to preliminary results by Gartner Inc.

“The market rebounded from a weak first quarter of 2020 to record the fastest year-over-year growth since Gartner began tracking the PC market in 2000,” it said.

“This growth should be viewed in the context of two unique factors: comparisons against a pandemic-constrained market and the current global semiconductor shortage,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner.

“Without the shipment chaos in early 2020, this quarter’s growth may have been lower. However, semiconductor shortages are now adversely affecting the supply chain once again, with shipment lead times for some PCs extending to as long as four months. While this may lead to lower shipment numbers, it is still reasonable to conclude that PC demand could remain strong even after stay-home restrictions ease. Moving forward, vendors and suppliers will be closely balancing the need to meet underlying demand without creating excess inventory,” said Kitagawa.

Chromebook shipments

While Gartner does not include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results, shipments for Chromebook increased by triple digits in the first quarter of 2021, compared to a year ago, as per the report. The growth was driven by investment among educational institutions in North America. After including Chromebooks, the total worldwide PC market grew 47 per cent year-over-year, Gartner said.

Top vendors

The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged from the previous quarter, with Lenovo maintaining the top spot by shipments. Lenovo gained a 25.1 per cent market share in Q1 21, followed by HP Inc., with a 21.4 per cent market share. Dell, Apple and Acer Group took the third, fourth and fith spot with 16.5 per cent, 8.0 per cent and 5.7 per cent market share, respectively. Asus was at the sixth spot with a 5.4 per cent market share.

All of the top six vendors experienced double-digit growth during the quarter. Lenovo recorded a 42.3 per cent year-over-year growth, the highest among the among top six vendors.

Contrary to HP and Dell, Lenovo increased shipments of deskbased PCs, largely due to high demand in China.

“Lenovo grew faster than the regional average in all key regions, with particularly strong growth in Asia Pacific (63.7 per cent). The company also appeared to be more in control of their supply chain, as a higher percentage of its PCs are manufactured in-house compared to other vendors,” the report said.

After two consecutive quarters of decline, HP recorded a strong YoY growth of 34.6 per cent, with continued traction in Latin America.

“However, it should be noted that HP’s strong growth is attributed in part to a significant decline in 1Q20, as HP was the hardest hit by the supply chain disruption among of the top three vendors at the time,” as per the report.

“Dell experienced the slowest growth among the top six vendors, largely due to the company’s focus on the business PC market, which did not experience as much growth as the robust consumer PC market. In light of component shortages and increasing freight costs, the company also pulled away from low-margin consumer products more than ever before,” it further added.

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