Global PC shipments reached 64.4 million units in the last quarter of 2024, a 1.4% increase from the last quarter of 2023 data, according to preliminary results by Gartner Inc.
This is the fifth straight quarter where shipments have gone up. For the whole year, 245.3 million PCs were shipped, marking a 1.3% rise from 2023. However, it’s the second year in a row that shipments have fallen below 250 million.
In the last quarter of 2024, the rankings of the top six PC vendors remained the same.
However, the performance of different companies varied. HP Inc. and Dell Technologies saw slight declines, but all other vendors reported growth compared to last year.
Lenovo maintained its growth for the fifth quarter in a row, showing a 4.2% increase compared to last year. While it did well in Japan and the Americas, it struggled in Asia Pacific and Canada. The weak market in China affected demand slightly, but it impacted Lenovo strongly as the country is its largest market. Other vendors had mixed results.
HP Inc. had a weaker quarter after five continuous quarters of growth, while Dell’s shipments fell by 0.1% compared to the same period last year.
In the United States, the PC market grew by 3.5% in the last quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2023, but it dropped by 1.7% sequentially.
HP led the U.S. PC market with 26.1% market share, followed by Dell with 21.8%.
The EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) market saw a decline of 1.6% in the last quarter of 2024 compared to a year earlier, following two quarters of growth. Year-over-year, the EMEA PC market grew by 1.9%.
In the Asia Pacific region, low demand in China was a major factor in reducing PC growth, with shipments dropping by 12% compared to last year.
However, other areas in the Asia Pacific, like Japan, managed better as businesses used their year-end budgets, and consumer PC sales picked up during holiday promotions. While desktop sales decreased, laptop shipments stayed the same as last year.
The PC market saw a slight recovery of 1.3% in 2024 after 2023’s poor performance, which was the weakest year for PCs in the last decade. In total, 245.4 million units were shipped in 2024, up from 242.3 million in 2023.
“Despite the increased expectations for the adoption of AI PCs and the anticipated Windows 11 PC refresh cycle, the global PC market recorded only modest growth in the fourth quarter of 2024,” said Ranjit Atwal, Sr. Director Analyst at Gartner. “For consumers, the price of AI PCs was a deterrent to any potential strong adoption, while economic uncertainties in some regions, such as China and parts of Europe, continued to stifle PC demand.
“We expect PC demand to pick up and the market to see solid growth in 2025, reflecting delayed Windows 11 PC refresh demand and the increasing business value of AI PCs as use cases mature,” said Atwal.
These numbers are preliminary. Final data will be available soon for Gartner’s PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program clients.
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