The global PC and notebook market has returned to growth after a two-year slump. Lenovo is still the leader

The PC market, as expected, returned to growth in the last quarter after a two-year decline, as confirmed by reports from leading analytical agencies IDC and Canalys: approximately 60 million computers were sold worldwide in the first quarter of 2024 (1.5% more than a year ago).

Situation on the PC market

There are minor discrepancies in calculations by IDC and Canalys but both teams recorded positive dynamics. This was largely facilitated by the decline in the first quarter of 2023 when the PC market shrank by 28.7% and reached the "bottom", the lowest level in the history of observations. In fact, global PC sales returned to pre-pandemic levels - to the results of the first quarter of 2019, when 60.5 million computers were sold. In other words, the PC market rolled back by 5 years.

With regard to the structure, according to Canalys, laptop shipments (including mobile workstations) grew by 4.2% to 45.1 million units, while desktop PCs (+ desktop workstations) remained at the same level, decreasing by only 0.4% to 12.1 million units.

Against the backdrop of decreasing inflation, PC sales volumes began to recover in all key regions - the USA, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). At the same time, deflationary pressure in China, the largest market, affected the global PC market - and the desktop PC segment, which significantly decreased in popularity compared to laptops, shrank further by 25%.

Top 5 largest PC manufacturers

The top five remained unchanged, only Acer and ASUS changed in recent months. Chinese Lenovo is still the largest PC supplier in the world, but the difference in sales volumes between Lenovo and American HP is relatively small: 13.7 and 12.0 million computers. But in terms of growth rates (+14.6%), Apple outperformed everyone (again), so the updated MacBook Pro with M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max are obviously selling well along with other models. At the end of the first quarter, sales in the top five only fell for ASUS and Dell. The rest either grew or, like HP, remained at the same level.

What's next

Analysts agree that the positive dynamics will continue throughout the year, despite weak demand in China - this will be primarily facilitated by the new PC refresh cycle and the transition to Windows 11 (it's time to update PCs purchased during the pandemic), as well as the emergence of new AI PCs. Canalys predicts that vendors will ship nearly 50 million computers with artificial intelligence integrated block, for example, NPU, to the market during 2024