Research firm Gartner Inc, has said worldwide PC shipments totalled 51.6 million units in the first quarter of 2020, a 12.3% decline from the first quarter of 2019.
Citing its preliminary results, Gartner Inc, said after three consecutive quarters of growth, the worldwide PC market experienced its sharpest decline since 2013 due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The single most significant influencing factor for PC shipment decline was the coronavirus outbreak, which resulted in disruptions to both the supply and demand of PCs,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “Following the first lockdown in China in late January, there was lower PC production volume in February that turned into logistics challenges.
“Once coronavirus-related lockdowns expanded to other regions, there were new, sudden pockets of PC demand for remote workers and online classrooms that PC manufacturers could not keep up with.
“This quarter’s vendor results underscore the growing economic uncertainties that are tightening PC spending, especially among small and midsize businesses. This uncertainty, coupled with the end of the Windows 10 upgrade peak, is causing enterprises to shift their IT budgets away from PCs and toward strategic business continuity planning. We will start seeing enterprises and consumers alike extending their PC life cycles on a more permanent basis as they focus on preserving cash,” said Kitagawa.
Despite the impact of COVID-19, the top three vendors’ market share remained unchanged from the previous quarter.
Despite surging demand for work-from-home devices, HP saw shipments drop amid supply constraints, according to Gartner.
Dell surpassed previous frontrunner HP Inc. in terms of U.S. PC shipments during the first quarter, as the COVID-19 coronavirus disrupted production in China while also increasing demand for work-from-home devices, research firm Gartner reported.
In EMEA, PC shipments declined 7% year over year to 16.8 million units and will likely continue to decline through 2020. The end of the first quarter saw a dramatic drop in both business and consumer PC purchases due to intense COVID-19 related lockdown measures across various countries in the region.
