Counterpoint Technology Market Research has summed up the results of its study of the global personal computer market in the first quarter of this year. Computer sales are down, but old problems like shortages persist.
Desktop and notebook shipments are estimated to have dropped 4.3% year-on-year to 78.7 million units. Analysts note that there are still problems with logistics and a shortage of components; although there are already signs of improvement.
Our checks suggest the PC supply chain turned relatively conservative on shipment outlook in the middle of Q1 2022; largely dragged by global inflation and regional conflict, which brought uncertainties to PC demand and blurred the overall PC shipment momentum ahead. The overall PC shipments in 2022 are expected to be shy of our forecasts made at the end of 2021. In addition, COVID-19 lockdowns in China, especially in Shanghai and Kunshan, where many laptop manufacturing lines are located, will cause shipment correction in April. Compared to OEMs, ODMs currently face more issues related to manufacturing resource allocation than component shortage impacts.
The largest PC vendor is Lenovo with a 23.1% share. During the first quarter of 2022, this company shipped approximately 18.2 million computers.
Global personal computer shipments declined in the first quarter of 2022
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In second place with a share of 20.2% and 15.9 million devices delivered is HP. Closes the top three Dell, which was able to sell about 13.8 million computers in three months. Next comes Apple with 7.1 million PCs sold. All other market players together sold 23.8 million desktops and laptops.
According to Counterpoint Technology Market Research, the shortage of components will ease in the second half of this year. However, in the current situation, PC shipments by the end of 2022 as a whole are likely to be lower than previously announced forecasts.
In the past two years, the PC supply chain has spent much effort dealing with demand uncertainties caused by COVID-19 and component shortages. But since late 2021, demand-supply gaps have been narrowing, signaling an approaching end to supply tightness across the broader ecosystem. Among all PCs and laptops, the supply gap for the most important components such as power management ICs, Wi-Fi and I/O interface IC has narrowed. We have seen OEMs and ODMs continuing to accumulate component inventory to cope with uncertainties arising from COVID-19. Combined with the abovementioned consumer and Chromebook demand weakness, we believe component shortages are going to ease in H2 2022.
