The ongoing coronavirus pandemic may have left some industries in ruin, and put a dent in others, but the PC industry actually bounced back from a poor quarter, with some solid numbers.
According to this report from IDC, worldwide shipments of PC hardware saw a healthy uptick of 11.2% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2020. This, as companies largely shifted to work from home arrangements for their employees.
The estimates have global PC shipments reaching 72.3 million units during this period, with the laptop segment putting up a rather great show due to remote learning and work needs.
HP led the pack with a 25% market share, with Lenovo close behind with 24.1%. Dell has been listed in third place in this chart, with a 16.6% slice, while Apple with 7.7% and Acer with 6.7% round up the top five in this space.
In the words of Jitesh Ubrani, Research Manager for Mobile Device Trackers at IDC:
“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio. What remains to be seen is if this demand and high level of usage continues during a recession and into the post-COVID world since budgets are shrinking while schools and workplaces reopen.”
In other words, analysts are skeptical about how long the good times will last. But no matter how long the growth lasts, the big take away is that people are making the shift from mobile devices to PCs.
A Gartner report similarly paints a positive outlook for the PC industry.
It claims that Q2 2020 had a total of 64.8 million units, a more modest 2.8% increase from the Q2 2019 showing. Lenovo and HP share the top spot here, with the two companies accounting for half of PC shipments in this period.
Dell, Apple, Acer and ASUS follow.
