According to preliminary results from research and consulting firm Gartner Inc., PC shipments in the Asia/Pacific (Apac) market declined by 2.2% year-over-year. This marks a less steep decline compared to previous quarters.
In contrast, Gartner’s data show that worldwide PC shipments totaled 60.6 million units in the second quarter of 2024, representing a 1.9% increase from the same period in 2023.
The decline in the Apac region was attributed to a weak market in China, which offset growth in both mature and emerging segments of Apac. Emerging Apac markets experienced mid-single-digit growth, driven by robust performance in India. Mature Apac markets also saw improving demand for PCs, resulting in year-over-year growth for the first time in two years.
Globally, this marks the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth for the PC market.
“The low year-on-year growth, together with stabilized sequential growth, indicates that the market is on the right track to recovery,” said Mikako Kitagawa, director analyst at Gartner. “With 7.8% sequential growth between Q1 2024 and Q2 2024, PC inventory is tracking back to an average level. We continue to see no major supply chain issues, allowing for the market to be well-positioned for continued growth with major platform updates on the horizon.”
The top six vendor rankings (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, Acer, Asus) remained unchanged compared to the second quarter of 2023. All top six vendors reported positive year-over-year growth, except for Dell.
AI PCs
Since the beginning of 2024, the PC industry has focused on promoting AI PCs, devices equipped with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). By the end of the second quarter, the first Arm-based Windows AI PC was introduced. This release is expected to heighten competition in the PC market, potentially creating more opportunities for Arm processors in Windows devices.
“Despite these market efforts, the demand for AI PCs has been slow, as the product is still in the early introduction stage, and the real benefits of owning such a device are not yet clear to most buyers,” said Kitagawa.
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