The PC market has not been holding up well based on its shipments since 2022. The latest estimates show that PC companies in the first quarter of 2023 are worse off, with their shipments dropping further by a third.
PC Shipments are Down
Collectively, PC shipments are said to have dropped between 29% to 30%, which is a significant year-over-year decrease for the first quarter of 2023. HP, which is the second biggest provider of PC-related items, has seen a 24% drop in shipments.
Other companies like ASUS, Dell, and Lenovo went through a bigger shipment drop of 30%. However, the company that appears to have suffered most of all is Apple, leading with a 40% drop in shipments in Q1 of 2023, according to Engadget.
These drastic numbers can be traced back to the effects of the pandemic still, as well as the current state of the economy. Inflation has caused many products to skyrocket in price, which resulted in customers backing out of purchases.
PCs as well as other electronic devices increased in sales during the pandemic. This is due to people needing their own devices to continue to work from home or keep themselves busy as they stay home during the quarantine period.
Since the pandemic has been winding down, more people are coming back to work on-site, and they no longer need their own devices as much as they did. There's also the current price of products that prevent people from buying said products.
Although, analysts believe that the worst is over, and the PC market will see an increase in shipments soon this 2023. Still, the recovery period may take a while, and matters may get worse if the recession doesn't die down by 2024.
Smartphones Will Also See Declines
Inflation does not discriminate as smartphones are also affected by the current economic state. Analysts estimate that smartphones will also see a decline in shipments this 2023, which may even extend to 2024.
International Data Corp provided an outlook that shows the smartphone market declining by 1.1% to 1.19 units, as mentioned in Market Watch. IDC previously forecast growth of 2.8%, but also stated that the market will not see significant recoveries until 2024.
An analyst from the IDc who tracks mobile and consumer devices, Nabila Popal says that they are still convinced that the global market will return to growth in 2024, once we get past the short-term challenges.
Smartphones running on Android will see a bigger decline than those of Apple running iOS. While Android devices are expected to drop by 1.2% to 967.7 million units, Apple devices have a smaller percentage of 0.5% to 225 million units, according to reports.
Despite that, IDC expects Android to have bigger percentage growth than Apple. Android phones are expected to have a five-year increase of 2.8% with an estimated shipment of 1.12 billion, while iPhones will see a 1.8% increase for an estimated 247.7 million shipments.
