14 DAY TRIAL // After two years of massive growth, the PC market is slowly but surely coming back to normal, with sales slowing down significantly in the last quarters.
A report from Digitimes highlights another consequence of the declining sales: manufacturers across the world are now sitting on big stocks of computers, and sooner or later, they should start cutting prices in order to sell as many devices as possible.
In other words, new PCs could soon become a lot cheaper, especially as manufacturers out there need to find a way to sell the devices they built.
On the other hand, after an upgrade supercycle that started in 2020, it’ll be hard for PC makers to convince customers out there to buy new computers, even if they cut prices significantly.
Sales continue to be over pre-2020 levels
Data that was released by IDC for the third quarter of the year revealed a decline of 15 percent year over year in the PC market, with the company specifically pointing to the dropping demand and the uneven supply as the main culprits.
However, IDC said new PC sales still remained above pre-2020 levels.
"Consumer demand has remained muted though promotional activity from the likes of Apple and other players has helped soften the fall and reduce channel inventory by a couple weeks across the board," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. "Supply has also reacted to the new lows by reducing orders with Apple being the only exception as their third quarter supply increased to make up for lost orders stemming from the lockdowns in China during the second quarter."
It'll be interesting to see if PC makers across the world will indeed cut prices substantially, but with the holiday season nearly in full swing, this may be the only option anyway.