Global PC shipments have plunged by roughly a fifth as soaring component costs keep buyers’ wallets firmly shut.
Beancounters at IDC have added up some numbers and divided by their collective shoe size, finding shipments fell 20.1 per cent. Its preliminary third-quarter figures put deliveries at 62.7 million machines, down from 78.5 million a year earlier.
Shipments fell 9.1 per cent from the second quarter, reversing the usual seasonal improvement that manufacturers presumably hoped would rescue their spreadsheets.
According to Ars Technica, vendors and distributors stocked up earlier this year to get ahead of memory price increases, borrowing demand from subsequent quarters. They now face swollen inventories while customers discover that their existing computers still perform the revolutionary function of working.
IDC research director for consumer devices Jitesh Ubrani said: “Channels are now worried about carrying too much inventory into a market where high prices are suppressing demand.”
Separate figures from Omdia paint an equally miserable picture, putting shipments at 58.1 million machines, down 21.2 per cent. Its desktop total fell 23.5 per cent to 11.7 million units, while notebooks dropped 20.6 per cent to 46.4 million.
Omdia principal analyst Ben Yeh said DRAM and SSDs now account for nearly 40 per cent of PC costs, against roughly 15 per cent previously. Component price increases exceeding fourfold have forced manufacturers to raise prices repeatedly without fully absorbing the added cost.
Omdia forecasts another 24 per cent annual shipment decline in the fourth quarter, followed by a seven per cent fall across 2027. Apparently, the industry’s recovery plan involves making computers increasingly expensive and waiting for customers to develop Stockholm syndrome.
IDC’s vendor breakdown puts Lenovo first with 14.9 million shipments, down 22.6 per cent, while HP fell 30.9 per cent. The Grey Box Shifter, Dell, shipped 7.6 million machines, down 25 per cent from the previous year.
The Fruity Cargo Cult Apple shipped 5.9 million Macs, down 11.3 per cent, while Asus delivered 5.5 million PCs, down 8.6 per cent. Job’s Mob gained market share because its competitors contracted faster, giving the marketing department something cheerful to print.
Omdia says shortages now extend beyond memory and storage to processors, graphics cards and numerous other integrated circuit components.
“Although PC vendors have raised prices multiple times over the past few quarters, these increases have yet to fully offset the impact,” Yeh said.
