Data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed that PC sales grew dramatically in 2020, the first time in a decade.
The IDC reports that global shipments of PCs (including desktops, notebooks and workstations) grew 26.1 percent year on year during the fourth quarter of 2020. Throughout 2020, PC sales grew a staggering 13.1 percent.
Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Traditional PC Shipments, Market Share, and Year-Over-Year Growth, Q4 2020 (Preliminary results, shipments are in thousands of units) | |||||
Company | 4Q20 Shipments | 4Q20 Market Share | 4Q19 Shipments | 4Q19 Market Share | 4Q20/4Q19 Growth |
1. Lenovo | 23,122 | 25.20% | 17,918 | 24.70% | 29.00% |
2. HP Inc. | 19,130 | 20.90% | 17,185 | 23.70% | 11.30% |
3. Dell Technologies | 15,797 | 17.20% | 12,463 | 17.20% | 26.80% |
4. Apple | 7,349 | 8.00% | 4,927 | 6.80% | 49.20% |
5. Acer Group | 6,551 | 7.20% | 4,418 | 6.10% | 48.30% |
Others | 19,641 | 21.40% | 15,712 | 21.60% | 25.00% |
Total | 91,590 | 100.00% | 72,622 | 100.00% | 26.10% |
The reasons for this growth spurt, according to the IDC, are an increase in folks working from home, remote learning and higher demand.
As for brands, Lenovo is by far the most popular one according to the data. The brand holds a 24 percent share of the global PC market and shipped over 72 million devices in 2020. The closest competitor to Lenovo is HP which holds 22.4 percent of the market and shipped 67 million devices in the same year.
Top 5 Companies, Worldwide Traditional PC Shipments, Market Share, and Year-Over-Year Growth, Calendar Year 2020 (Preliminary results, shipments are in thousands of units) | |||||
Company | 2020 Shipments | 2020 Market Share | 2019 Shipments | 2019 Market Share | 2020/2019 Growth |
1. Lenovo | 72,669 | 24.00% | 64,855 | 24.20% | 12.00% |
2. HP Inc. | 67,646 | 22.40% | 62,935 | 23.50% | 7.50% |
3. Dell Technologies | 50,298 | 16.60% | 46,546 | 17.40% | 8.10% |
4. Apple | 23,102 | 7.60% | 17,894 | 6.70% | 29.10% |
5. Acer Group | 20,989 | 6.90% | 17,080 | 6.40% | 22.90% |
Others | 67,901 | 22.40% | 58,357 | 21.80% | 16.40% |
Total | 302,605 | 100.00% | 267,667 | 100.00% | 13.10% |
“Demand is pushing the PC market forward and all signs indicate this surge still has a way to go,” program vice president with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers, Ryan Reith, said in a statement.
“The obvious drivers for last year’s growth centered around work from home and remote learning needs, but the strength of the consumer market should not be overlooked. We continue to see gaming PCs and monitor sales at all-time highs and Chrome-based devices are expanding beyond education into the consumer market. In retrospect, the pandemic not only fueled PC market demand but also created opportunities that resulted in a market expansion,” Reith added.
That point about gaming being a driver is interesting as if we look at the top three brands for 2020, all three offer not only consumer PCs but gaming and workstations as well.
Like the IDC we’re curious to see whether this growth is sustained. The final quarter of 2020 brought with it a slew of new hardware releases but supply chain problems and production delays made getting a hold of new tech tricky.
“Not only were PC makers and ODMs dealing with component and production capacity shortages, but logistics remained an issue as vendors were forced to resort to air freight, upping costs at the expense of reducing delivery times,” research manager at IDC, Jitesh Ubrani, said.
“Every segment of the supply chain was stretched to its limits as production once again lagged behind demand during the quarter,” the research manager said.
With that in mind perhaps 2021 will be an even bigger year for PCs.