According to the latest IDC Quarterly Personal Computing Devices Tracker 2019Q4, the Traditional PC market (desktops, notebooks, workstations) grew by 3.8% with a total of 103.3 million units in the Asia Pacific (including Japan) in 2019. The market was driven by growth in the commercial segment, which reached 57.9 million units and posted a 7.5% increase.

The shipments were boosted by PC refreshes related to Windows 10 migration, which drove demand in both public and private sectors across the region. In Japan, the commercial market recorded an astounding 59.7% increase, supported predominantly by Windows 10 renewals.

“With Windows 7 end of support looming, many businesses migrated to Windows 10 and refreshed their old devices at the same time last year,” said Jennifer Kwan, market analyst for Client Devices at IDC Asia Pacific. “While this was primarily in Japan, refreshes were driving demand in other Asia/Pacific* countries too, bringing growth to the overall commercial PC segment in the region.”

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Several large deployments to education supported the public sector (e.g. 1.6 million units for the ELCOT tender in India, and education projects in Indonesia). On the other hand, the commercial market in China remained soft, tarnished by ongoing US-China trade tensions and a drop in projects in the public sector.

Gaming

In the consumer market, shipments declined by 0.6% in 2019, bringing total volumes to 45.3 million units. Desktop shipments contracted by 11.3% amid an ongoing drop in demand, as many consumers continued to switch to portable devices. Notebook PCs posted growth of 3.6% thanks to ultraslim notebooks with chassis thinner than 21mm.

The consumer market also continued to grow in the gaming space, fueled by strong demand from users, more offerings at lower price points, and more appealing designs. These factors made gaming notebooks one of the best performing segments in the PC market in 2019, with consumer gaming notebook shipments increasing by 11.9%.

Processors

One of the big winners in the consumer PC market in 2019 was AMD. Thanks to an increase in the number of offerings with Ryzen processors, as well as Intel’s ongoing supply shortages, AMD managed to increase its share in the consumer market from 11.4% in 2018 to 17.4% in 2019, with AMD-based PC shipments growing by 52.4%.