Recently, IDC's global quarterly personal computing device tracking report showed that global shipments of traditional PCs, including desktops, laptops and workstations, fell by 5.1% in the first quarter of 2022, and the notebook computer market is the hardest hit area; supply chains and logistics are still facing challenges.
From the above data, as of Q1 2022, global PC shipments have exceeded 80 million units for the seventh consecutive quarter, but in terms of year-on-year shipments, Dell, Apple and Asus are the top suppliers for growth; Lenovo and HP brands have fallen by 9.2% and 17.8%.
It is worth mentioning that TrendForce said that due to ongoing supply chain shortages and slowing demand, it has lowered laptop shipments in 2022 from 238 million units in the whole year to 225 million units, an annual decrease of 8.5%. And overall Chromebook shipments are expected to fall by more than 50 percent in 2022, all of which will reduce total laptop shipments by about 7 to 10 percent.
Faced with uncertainties such as full demand, rising costs and supply chains, how should the whole machine manufacturer cope with the slowdown in the PC market in the future? Lenovo, which topped the global PC shipment list, has said that it has incubated three emerging innovative services: edge computing, cloud services and AR/VR technology based on meta-universe applications, and will be the focus of project areas in the next 2-3 years.
Lenovo is looking for investment in areas other than PC projects, most of which is because it has strong financial resources and strength support, just like the Surface series, Microsoft, which wants to force the hardware market, can be described as an investment regardless of cost. If it is replaced by a small company operating hard, I believe that there will not be so many series and multiple product lines.
In any case, the PC market has been in a slowdown in growth in the past 3-5 years, if it is not the global outbreak in 2020, the demand surge, PC manufacturers are difficult to reverse the fate of the decline. I hope that many PC manufacturers have laid out the next emerging project cultivation, let us wait and see.