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PC shipments were constrained in the third quarter and supply chain issues and chip shortages persisted world-wide as more students going back to school in person sapped a surge powered by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research firm data Monday.
Research firm Gartner said global PC shipments grew 1% in the third quarter to 84.1 million units from a year ago, while International Data Group said shipments increased by 3.9% to 86.7 million. Particularly hit was HP Inc.
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which saw mid-single digit declines, according to both firms.
“The PC industry continues to be hampered by supply and logistical challenges and unfortunately these issues have not seen much improvement in recent months,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s Mobile Device Trackers, in a statement.
“Given the current circumstances, we are seeing some vendors reprioritize shipments amongst various markets, allowing emerging markets to maintain growth momentum while some mature markets begin to slow,” Ubrani said.
Supply chain issues helped dampen shipments to the U.S., IDC said.
“Bottlenecked supply chains and ongoing logistic challenges led the U.S. PC market into its first quarter of annual shipment decline since the beginning of the pandemic,” said Neha Mahajan, senior research analyst at IDC, in a statement.
“After a year of accelerated buying driven by the shift to remote work and learning, there’s also been a comparative slowdown in PC spending and that has caused some softening of the U.S. PC market today,” Mahajan said. “Yet, supply clearly remains behind demand in key segments with inventory still below normal levels.”
“As many schools world-wide reopened, there was no longer an immediate need for PCs and Chromebooks to support at-home education,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner, in a statement.
“Business PC demand remained strong, led by economic recovery in key regions and the return of some workers to offices,” Kitagawa said. “However, business PC growth was concentrated in the desktop segment as semiconductor shortages continued to constrain laptop shipments. These component shortages are expected to persist into the first half of 2022.”
Gartner made a major change this quarter in how it reported its shipment figures by including Chromebooks to their tally. Previously, Gartner did not factor Chromebooks — those PCs that run on Alphabet Inc.’s
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Google Chrome operating system — into their figures.
According to Gartner, Lenovo Group Ltd.
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shipments rose 1.8% to 19.9 million, while HP shipments fell 5.8% to 17.6 million units. Dell Technologies Inc.
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shipments rose 26.5% to 15.2 million PCs, Apple Inc.
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shipments rose 7.4% to 7.2 million units, while Acer Group shipments declined 4.6% and Asus shipments rose 5.5% to tie at 6 million units.
Lenovo also retook its lead from HP, according to IDC data. Lenovo shipments rose 3.1% to 19.8 million units, while HP’s shipments declined 5.8% to 17.6 million. Dell shipments surged 26.6% to 15.2 million units, Apple shipments rose 9.9% to7.6 million units. Acer and Asus shipments were a statistical tie at around 6 million units, according to IDC, with Asus shipments up 3.6% and Acer down 2.8% to surged 23.6% to 4 million units, according to IDC.
