RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Sales of personal computers continue to plunge worldwide but Lenovo is widening its lead as the global leader. And in the U.S. the company is within striking distance of third place for sales thanks to a 1% improvement in shipments.
Research firm Gartner’s latest report covering the quarter ending Sept. 30 says global shipments declined 9% – the eighth straight quarterly decline since the end of the global pandemic which has sparked a PC resurgence as people, schools and companies responded to work from home mandates by investing in PCs and other hardware.
Competing research firm IDC reported similar figures for shipments and also shows Lenovo, which maintains one of its two global headquarters in the Triangle (the other is in Beijing), with a near 4 percentage point market share lead.
Lenovo continues to introduce new models – now with an emphasis on artificial intelligence – and it will showcase the latest gear and software at its “AI for all: Driving intelligent transformation” event in Austin, Texas, later this month.
IDC graphic
Lenovo hasn’t escape the plunge in sales. Units shipped dropped to 16.4 million from 16.9 million, or 4.4%, year over years. However its market share grew to 25.1% from 23.9%, widening its lead over HP to more than four percentage points. And its declining sales showed signs of easing.
“While Lenovo once again saw a year-over-year decline in shipments, it was eased to a single digit decrease,” Gartner notes. “Meanwhile, HP was the only vendor to exhibit year-over-year growth, with shipments increasing across all regions. Dell reported a sixth consecutive quarter of shipment decline, impacted by weak enterprise PC demand given its a strong presence in the market.”
Overall, sales fell 9% year-over-year to 64.3 million units.
“The PC industry is on a slow path to recovery as a device refresh cycle and end of support for Windows 10 will help drive sales in the second half of 2024 and beyond. In the meantime, the PC industry will unfortunately experience more pain,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers, in the IDC report. “The slowness in the industry is giving the supply chain an opportunity to explore procurement and production options outside China and this will likely remain a key issue going forward, second only to the advancement of AI within PCs.”
Better news ahead?
But better news may be coming, Gartner says. It’s forecasting nearly 5% growth in 2024.
“There is evidence that the PC market’s decline has finally bottomed out,” said Mikako Kitagawa, Director Analyst at Gartner, in a statement. “Seasonal demand from the education market boosted shipments in the third quarter, although enterprise PC demand remained weak, offsetting some growth. Vendors also made consistent progress towards reducing PC inventory, with inventory expected to return to normal by the end of 2023, as long as holiday sales do not collapse.”
Charting sales
Table 1. Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q23 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 3Q23 Shipments | 3Q23 Market Share (%) | 3Q22 Shipments | 3Q22 Market Share (%) | 3Q23-3Q22 Growth (%) |
| Lenovo | 16,146 | 25.1 | 16,887 | 23.9 | -4.4 |
| HP Inc. | 13,531 | 21.0 | 12,713 | 18.0 | 6.4 |
| Dell | 10,320 | 16.1 | 12,022 | 17.0 | -14.2 |
| Apple | 6,266 | 9.7 | 8,267 | 11.7 | -24.2 |
| ASUS | 4,876 | 7.6 | 5,512 | 7.8 | -11.5 |
| Acer | 4,388 | 6.8 | 4,494 | 6.4 | -2.4 |
| Others | 8,753 | 13.6 | 10,709 | 15.2 | -18.3 |
| Total | 64,279 | 100.0 | 70,604 | 100.0 | -9.0 |
Notes: Data includes desktop and laptop PCs that are equipped with Windows, macOS or Chrome OS. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (October 2023)
The U.S. Market
In the U.S., HP and Dell are in a tight race for the top spot with HP climbing to No. 1 after managing to increase shipments year-over-year by 2.4%. Its market share climbed to 24.6% vs. 24.4% for Dell.
U.S. shipments fell by more than 9% year-over-year.
Lenovo climbed to within 1 million units shipped of Apple for the No. 3 spot.
Table 2. Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 3Q23 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 3Q23 Shipments | 3Q23 Market Share (%) | 3Q22 Shipments | 3Q22 Market Share (%) | 3Q23-3Q22 Growth (%) |
| HP Inc. | 4,153 | 24.6 | 4,054 | 21.7 | 2.4 |
| Dell | 4,123 | 24.4 | 4,687 | 25.1 | -12.0 |
| Apple | 2,824 | 16.7 | 3,806 | 20.4 | -25.8 |
| Lenovo | 2,781 | 16.4 | 2,751 | 14.8 | 1.1 |
| Acer | 1,021 | 6.0 | 1,007 | 5.4 | 1.5 |
| ASUS | 644 | 3.8 | 708 | 3.8 | -9.0 |
| Others | 1,363 | 8.1 | 1,630 | 8.7 | -16.4 |
| Total | 16,909 | 100.0 | 18,643 | 100.0 | -9.3 |
Notes: Data includes desktop and laptop PCs that are equipped with Windows, macOS or Chrome OS. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding.
Source: Gartner (October 2023)
“The U.S market’s decline was primarily caused by weak enterprise PC demand. However, Chromebook growth driven by replacement demand in K-12 educational institutions offset some of the decline,” Gartner says.
