The coronavirus pandemic forced citizens to spend more time at home, teleworking was even promoted and classes were virtual, under such circumstances the sale of computers took advantage of the opportunity and gained two consecutive years of increased sales. After this ‘boom’, together with the economic instability that is around 16%, according to figures published by the consultancies IDC, Gartner and Canalys.
After two years in which computer sales registered increases that had not occurred for a decade, the consultants pointed out that the market fell in 2022 due to the economic situation, the fact that users have new new devices with 2021 , which was close to breaking the all-time high with 350.1 million units sold.
Specifically, IDC estimates the drop in computer shipments by 16.5% last year compared to 2021 to 292.3 million units. Figures that are in line with those published by Gartner or Canalys, which agree that the computer market fell 16% to 286.2 million and 285.1 million units shipped, respectively.
“It is clear that the ‘boom’ of the pandemic has ended for the computer market,” summarizes the IDC consultancy, although it points out that, despite the market contraction, shipments last year were above the levels of 2019, when the figure was 261 million units, 10% less than in 2022, 13.7%, and in 2021, 14.8%.
In fact, between 2010 and 2020 there had been up to six years of decline in sales that ended during the pandemic thanks to teleworking, distance learning and games, which reached all-time highs. After the setback of 2022, IDC and Canalys expect the market to start to improve by the end of 2023 thanks to increased demand among consumers and in education, before fully recovering in 2024.
Lenovo is still king
Although several in market share and the decline experienced, the three technology consultancies coincide in placing the Chinese Lenovo as the company that sold the most units in 2022, followed by HP, Dell Technologies, Apple and Asus.
Chinese technology exceeded 68 million laptops, with a 23.3% market share despite experiencing a 16.9% decline compared to 2021, according to IDC data. After her, HP fell 26.5% to 55.3 million units shipped in 2022, 18.2% of the total, and Dell Technologies did so by 16.1% to 49.8 million units, a 17% of the total.
For its part, Apple shipments grew by 2.5% to 28.6 million units in 2022 (9.8% of the total), while those of Asus fell by 5.7%, after selling 20, 6 million units (7% of the total).
A bad fourth quarter
Despite the fact that the computer market chained several consecutive quarterly declines during 2022, the fall was especially pronounced between October and December, with a decline that ranges between 28.1% and 29%, depending on the consultancy.
According to IDC, sales of these devices decreased by 28.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021 to 67.2 million units, compared to the 28.5% drop to 91 .3 million collected by Gartner and the drop of 29% to 65.4 million from Canalys.
By geographical areas, Gartner indicates that the market in the US corresponds to 22.5% in the quarter of 2022 if compared to the same period of 2021, while in the region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) it occurs “a historic drop” of shipments of 37.2%
