PC Shipment Decline Slows In Q2, Says Canalys

Good news potentially for the beleaguered PC industry, as one analyst house points to an easing of the large shipment declines seen in recent times.

According to the latest data from Canalys, the worldwide PC market decline slowed in Q2 2023, with total shipments of desktops and notebooks down 11.5 percent year on year to 62.1 million units.

This decline is actually good news as it follows two consecutive quarters where shipments declined by over 30 percent. The 11.5 percent decline in Q2 hopefully signals that the shipment freefall is easing.

PC shipments

Canalys said that second quarter volume represents a sequential increase in shipments by 11.9 percent and is a sign that the market is on track for accelerated recovery in the second half of this year.

It estimated that notebook shipments were down 9.3 percent annually, landing at 49.4 million units, while desktops faced a larger decline of 19.3 percent to 12.6 million units of shipments.

“The PC market is showing early signs of a bounce back following a difficult period,” said Ishan Dutt, principal analyst at Canalys. “An annual shipment decline was expected in the second quarter of 2023, but there are indications that many of the issues that have affected the sector are beginning to abate.”

“While the global macroeconomic situation remains difficult, key industry players have been pointing to the fact that end-user activation rates have been tracking stronger than sell-in shipments,” said Dutt.

“As conditions improve, we expect businesses to reallocate dormant spending back toward IT upgrades,” said Dutt. “In Q2 2023, the return of public sector funding helped fuel strong back-to-school demand for PCs.”

“Positive market signals suggest a further improvement for the PC industry in 2023,” added Kieren Jessop, research analyst at Canalys. “Inventory levels reduced further in Q2, as 41 percent of channel partners surveyed by Canalys in June reported that they have less than one week of PC inventory.”

“All customer segments are set to improve sequentially for the remainder of 2023 amid a final push of inventory corrections and stronger seasonality in the latter half of the year,” said Jessop. “However, full-year 2023 shipments will be lower than 2022 as consumers relegate spending on PCs behind other categories in a post-pandemic environment.”

Leader board

So who are the PC shipment winners, according to the Canalys data?

Well there is no surprise that Lenovo continued to lead the worldwide PC market, but it underwent a large shipment decline of 18 percent year on year, dropping to 14.2 million units.

Second-placed HP enjoyed a strong quarter, aided by healthy sales of Chromebooks in the US. It posted a flat performance by shipping 13.4 million units globally, Canalys found.

Dell maintained third place but lost over two points of market share as its shipments declined 22 percent, Canalys found.

Apple achieved the highest growth among the major vendors in Q2 2023, with shipments up 51 percent year on year. There is no doubt Apple has been boosted by the launch of the new 15-inch Macbook Air, its strong performance was mostly driven by a favourable comparison quarter due to the supply chain disruption it faced last year.

Acer sealed the fifth spot in the rankings, with shipments at just under four million units.