Chip shortages hamper PC market growth: IDC

Global shipments of PC desktops, notebooks and workstations have grown 3.9 percent in the third quarter of 2021 despite a surge in demand, research from IDC revealed.

PC shipments for the period was at 86.7 million, up from 83.4 million in the same period in 2020. IDC said the increase represents the sixth consecutive quarter of growth for the PC market amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which had led to a surge in demand and contributed to component shortages and other supply challenges.

“The PC industry continues to be hampered by supply and logistical challenges and unfortunately these issues have not seen much improvement in recent months,” IDC research manager for IDC’s mobile and consumer device trackers Jitesh Ubrani said.

“Given the current circumstances, we are seeing some vendors reprioritize shipments amongst various markets, allowing emerging markets to maintain growth momentum while some mature markets begin to slow.”

Among the top five PC vendors, number 3 Dell saw the most growth at 26.6 percent from 12 million units shipped in Q3 2020 to 15.2 million units this year. Second-place HP Inc meanwhile declined 5.8 percent from 18.7 million shipments to 17.8 million.

The other vendors in the top five are Lenovo (1st), Apple (4th) and ASUS and Acer Group (tied for 5th)

IDC senior research analyst for devices and displays Neha Mahajan said, “Bottlenecked supply chains and ongoing logistic challenges led the US PC market into its first quarter of annual shipment decline since the beginning of the pandemic.”

“After a year of accelerated buying driven by the shift to remote work and learning, there’s also been a comparative slowdown in PC spending and that has caused some softening of the US PC market today. Yet, supply clearly remains behind demand in key segments with inventory still below normal levels.”Got a news tip for our journalists? Share it with us anonymously here.

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