Some 77.5 million PCs were sold worldwide in Q1 2022, down 7.3% from the same period in 2021, Gartner reports. A sharp drop in Chromebook sales contributed significantly to this first market downturn in two years.
The Covid-19 pandemic boosted Chromebook sales particularly in 2020 and 2021, when students or employees had to work from home much more than before. At the time, these high-performance but relatively inexpensive computers satisfied a strong demand. This demand has, unsurprisingly, subsided today, with a significant impact on overall PC sales.
For the whole quarter, the Chinese company Lenovo is the leader in sales, with just over 18.2 million units sold, for a market share of 23.6%. Year-on-year, Lenovo has nevertheless seen sales drop by more than 12%. HP and Dell complete the podium places, with 15.8 and 13.7 million PC shipments respectively. Apple starts the year as it ended 2021, in fourth place, with seven million PCs sold, a year-on-year increase of 8%. Asus and Acer follow, with just over 5.5 million PCs sold in the first three months of the year.
These figures are not especially surprising, as Gartner expects PC demand to slow for at least the next two years, even if annual sales volumes are not expected to fall back to pre-pandemic levels.
Some 339.7 million PCs were sold worldwide in 2021, the sector's best performance since 2013.
