Canalys, Gartner and IDC weigh in on health of the PC market in Q2
One analyst’s figures show the market experienced the sharpest decline in nine years
Three of the channel's top analyst houses have published their figures on the global PC market for the second quarter of 2022.
Q2 spelt trouble for the market, with data from Gartner, Canalys and IDC showing year on year declines across the board.
Gartner said global PC shipments totaled 72 million units in Q2, a 12.6 per cent drop from the second quarter of 2021.
It claimed this is the sharpest decline in nine years, brought on by geopolitical, economic and supply chain challenges impacting all regional markets.
Canalys thinks the decrease is even steeper at 15 per cent, with shipments of 70.2 million units.
While IDC's data is more in line with Canalys, posting a 15.3 per cent fall with shipments totaling 71.3 million units.
"The decline we saw in the first quarter of 2022 has accelerated in the second quarter, driven by the ongoing geopolitical instability caused by the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, inflationary pressure on spending and a steep downturn in demand for Chromebooks," said Gartner research director, Mikako Kitagawa.
"Supply chain disruptions also continued, but the major cause of PC delivery delays changed from component shortages to logistics disruptions."
The three research firms also arrived at the same conclusion around the top three PC vendors, with Lenovo topping the list, followed by HP and Dell.
However, these three tech giants saw shipments shrink year on year.
The analysts pegged Lenovo's shipments at around the 17.5m units mark, a tumble of about 12.5 per cent.
Gartner, Canalys and IDC also came to a similar consensus for HP and Dell's performances, with shipments north of 13.4m representing a slump of 27.5 per cent for the former, and a dip of 5.3 per cent with 13.2m shipments for the latter.
Regional breakdown: EMEA hardest hit
The PC market across in the US struggled with a drop of 17.5 per cent in Q2, according to Gartner.
It said that 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.
Meanwhile, Gartner indicates the EMEA PC market was the hardest hit in the second quarter of 2022 with a 18 per cent decrease in PC shipments, reaching only 17.8 million units.
The region also experienced a 20 per cent decline in laptop shipments, while Chromebook shipments fell more than 50 per cent year on year.
Gartner explained this is the result of overall sluggish demand from consumers across many countries in EMEA, struggling with price increases across many products, especially fuel and energy.
A very high level of inflation will negatively impact consumer purchase power in the second half of 2022 and possibly into the first half of 2023.
IDC also dropped its two cents on the US market, claiming it is "staring at another quarter of double-digit decline across most segments" with education PC appetite saturating and consumer demand stagnating.