In the past year, China's computer market has experienced a significant contraction, with PC shipments (desktop + laptop) falling by 17% year-on-year, which marks that the industry has entered a stage of adjustment under the influence of multiple factors. In the past two years, the small spike in PC purchases, driven by the boom in working from home and online education, has gradually subsided, and market demand has returned to a more stable state.
With the phased characteristics of modern technology development and the changes in market consumption behavior, the cycle of technological upgrading has shown a significant trend of extension in the world, especially in the field of personal computers. While the core performance gains of the new generation of PC products are still there, the gap between them and previous generations is no longer as significant as in the past, so they are not enough to strongly stimulate users to make frequent hardware upgrades. More and more users are inclined to get the most out of their existing equipment, choosing to maintain and upgrade some components rather than replacing them as a whole to extend the life of the equipment, thus reducing the frequency of overall replacement.
Four of the top five PC manufacturers in the Chinese market saw a decline in shipments.
ASUS ranked 5th in China's PC market, with annual shipments of about 2.863 million units, down 24% year-on-year, and Dell ranked 4th in China's PC market, with annual shipments of about 3.148 million units, down 44% year-on-year.
Huawei ranked third in China's PC market, with annual shipments of about 3.986 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11%. Huawei's PC growth is driven by a variety of factors, including actively deploying a smart office ecosystem and strengthening collaboration between mobile and PC devices. Continuously introduce products with innovative technology and design, especially in the field of thin and light notebooks and high-performance PCs, which have won market recognition. At the same time, by strengthening the construction of localized service networks and channels, Huawei has successfully captured the trend of increasing recognition of domestic brands by domestic consumers.
HP ranked second in China's PC market, with annual shipments of about 4.309 million units, down 2% year-on-year. The product line covers a wide range of products, providing a variety of product choices for different consumer groups, including business, home, students and game users, to meet the needs of different levels of market demand. Its success in the Chinese market is due to its deep technology accumulation, comprehensive product layout, effective localization strategy, brand advantage and flexible competitive strategy.
Lenovo ranked No. 1 in China's PC market, with annual shipments of about 15.536 million units, down 19% year-on-year. The increasing functionality of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has led to a growing consumer reliance on these portable devices, somewhat distracting the need for traditional PCs. In response to the downturn in global PC shipments, Lenovo and other PC manufacturers are looking for new growth areas, such as launching innovative products, enhancing the application of AI technology on PCs, optimizing the user experience, and broadening sales channels and service support to meet the challenges of market changes and seek to reverse the decline and achieve sustainable growth in the future.
Looking to the future: AI PCs lead to new growth points
In the face of the slowdown in the growth of the traditional PC market, the industry is generally optimistic about the application prospects of artificial intelligence (AI) in the PC field. AI PCs are expected to become a new bright spot to stimulate market vitality by integrating intelligent voice assistants, embedding personal large models, and providing personalized experiences. With the development of cloud computing, big data, and edge computing technologies, AI PCs will provide more possibilities in terms of work efficiency, entertainment experience, and educational assistance, and further promote industrial upgrading.
Industry insiders' comments: Under the combined effect of the current technological development situation and market consumption concepts, the replacement cycle of PC hardware is indeed quietly extended. This phenomenon has forced PC manufacturers to re-examine their market strategies and seek to create greater value in terms of product quality, user experience, technical support and service to meet consumer demand for more durable and cost-effective PC products. At the same time, it also brings new challenges and opportunities to the entire IT industry, such as exploring how to stimulate the potential of the existing market through the combination of software and hardware, and developing more innovative and differentiated products to stimulate potential renewal demand. PC manufacturers should seize the opportunity of product innovation brought about by AI technology to develop next-generation smart PC products that meet consumer expectations, and strengthen cooperation with software and service providers to build a complete ecosystem.