14 DAY TRIAL // The most recent Gartner data for the PC market reveals a 7.3 percent in the first quarter of the year versus the same period a year ago.
The drop isn’t by any means surprising, especially given the component shortage across the world, but also considering the massive boost in terms of demand that was recorded last year.
Lenovo continues to be the top company with 18.2 million sold units in the first quarter of the year, down from 20.8 million a year before. HP is the runner-up with 15.8 million units, followed by Dell and Apple with 13.7 and 7 million devices, respectively.
ASUS is the company that managed to increase its market performance with total sales of 5.5 million units, up from 5.6 million units in the first quarter of 2021.
“After an unprecedented Chromebook surge in 2020 and early 2021, driven by demand from the U.S. educational market, Chromebook growth has tempered,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “It was a challenging quarter for the PC and Chromebook market to achieve growth, as this time last year the PC market registered its highest growth in decades.”
Major decline recorded by the Chromebook
Garner analysts say PC makers have been impacted from the decline of the Chromebook as well, especially as companies like Lenovo and HP have become very committed to such devices.
“Lenovo and HP both experienced significant impacts from declining Chromebook sales in the first quarter. Lenovo was affected by slowed U.S. Chromebook sales, but that decline was moderated by its growth in Latin America and Asia Pacific. HP prioritized Chromebooks in recent years but decreased its Chromebook focus in the second half of 2021, leading to a significant decline in overall shipments for the first quarter of 2022,” Gartner says.
Excluding Chromebooks, the PC market increased by 3.3 percent year over year, according to the same research.