While the coronavirus outbreak that still maintains its impact negatively affects many industries, things are going well for some sectors and companies. Many students who continue to learn from home, work from home, and many others have recently begun to consume more technology products. In this context, the PC market is on the rise after the decline.
With Intel’s CPU supply shortages and factory closures in China, PC shipments dropped between 8% and 10% in the first quarter of the year. This period was the worst financial quarter since 2013. However, as the production facilities reopened and more people started working remotely, there was a significant rise in the market. Of course, the increase in the consumption of multimedia content and the orientation of the gamers also affected.
Analyst firms IDC and Gartner reported a growth report on PC shipments in the second quarter. IDC explained the level of increase as 11.2%, saying sales reached 72.3 million units. Gartner reported an increase of 2.8% to 64.8 million.
Let us also mention that Gartner does not include Chromebooks in their numbers, but IDC does. Canalys, another analyst firm, reported that laptop shipments (including Chromebooks) increased 24% year-on-year and desktop shipments decreased 26% year-on-year. The global PC market, on the other hand, grew by 9% in the second quarter. “Laptops took the PC market out of this depression alone,” said Canalys research director Rushabh Doshi.
On the other hand, Microsoft reported that the demand for PCs increased in April, and then there was a huge increase in the use of Windows in May. Now the question in mind is whether this strong performance will continue and the potential negative effects of the upcoming recession that will reflect on the industry.
