Even though COVID 19 cases are going down around the world, the business world has already found its solace in the work from home environment, pushing the need for PCs higher than ever before. And maybe that is the reason that the sales of personal computers, from desktop computers to full-fledged workstations, kept up its pace in terms of sales, and continued to see a growth in the global PC market, even in the second quarter of fiscal year 2021.
Shipments during the second quarter rose to hit 82.3 million units, an impressive increase of 13% on a year-on-year basis. At the same time, there has also been a shift in trend. With consumers becoming more and more reluctant to use personal computers after being cooped up at home for too long, thanks to the pandemic, the major chunk of the demand for PCs across the world has been made by the corporate sector.
A report by Canalys reveals that one of the major problems that has hit the PC industry has been a shortage of supplies, even though shortfalls are gradually decreasing.
The shipments of mobile workstations and notebooks have seen a growth of 15% year-on-year, sitting at around 66.7 million units. Desktop and desktop workstation shipments, on the other hand, rose moderately by around 6%, hitting 15.6 million units. Still, this has been the first time since Q4 of 2019, that shipments of desktops have seen a rise.
All PC vendors that make up the global top five saw increases in shipments in Q2 2021, thanks to growing demand from businesses. Lenovo managed to remain at the top, and in fact, enlarged the margin, seeing an annual growth of 14.7%. Moreover, its sales remained above the 20-million unit mark for the third consecutive quarter, says the report. Meanwhile, HP remained true to its place as second in the lineup, but its relative growth in terms of shipment volume remained the smallest among the top 5, at just 2.8%. This has been attributed to slowdowns in Japan and EMEA.
Dell, the third in line, saw an impressive growth of 16.5%, so much so that it managed to close in at the third place, thanks to its high demand in the corporate world. Apple and Acer were the fourth and fifth in the sequence, respectively. Each of them saw growths in double digit values, and stood at shipments of 6.4 million and 6.0 million units, respectively.
Rushabh Doshi, the Resesrch Director at Canalys seems rather happy with the results, and says, “The PC market could not be in a better position. The slowdown in consumer demand, stemming from fulfilment of backlogs and greater market penetration, has been nicely balanced by growing commercial demand, as markets around the world limp back to normality. PC vendors now have two key business opportunities – first-time PC users and upgraders. With the installed base having blown up massively in the past year, upgrade opportunities will provide a strong long-term sales pipeline. Let us not forget, some of the most exciting platform innovation is happening now. Apple with ARM and macOS updates, Microsoft with Windows 11 and Google with Chrome OS are poised to make PCs their next battlefield, which can only benefit vendors and their supply chain partners.”
