PC Market Records Fastest Year-Over-Year Growth in Two Decades: Gartner

STAMFORD, Conn., April 12, 2021 — Worldwide PC shipments totaled 69.9 million units in the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 32% from the first quarter of 2020, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The market rebounded from a weak first quarter of 2020 to record the fastest year-over-year growth since Gartner began tracking the PC market in 2000.

The Asia Pacific PC market saw strong double-digit growth (37.6%) in the first quarter of 2021. While this figure is partially inflated due to a weak first quarter of 2020, healthy consumer demand and a rebound in desktops from business demands contributed to a strong market. In China specifically, the PC market experienced particularly high growth of 70% year-over-year.

“This growth should be viewed in the context of two unique factors: comparisons against a pandemic-constrained market and the current global semiconductor shortage,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “Without the shipment chaos in early 2020, this quarter’s growth may have been lower. However, semiconductor shortages are now adversely affecting the supply chain once again, with shipment lead times for some PCs extending to as long as four months.

“While this may lead to lower shipment numbers, it is still reasonable to conclude that PC demand could remain strong even after stay-home restrictions ease. Moving forward, vendors and suppliers will be closely balancing the need to meet underlying demand without creating excess inventory.”

While Gartner does not include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results, Chromebook shipments grew by triple digits in the first quarter of 2021, compared to a year ago, with growth primarily driven by investment among educational institutions in North America. Including Chromebooks, the total worldwide PC market grew 47% year-over-year. 

The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged from the previous quarter, with Lenovo maintaining the top spot by shipments. All of the top six vendors experienced double-digit growth, and all, except Dell, gained market share compared to a year ago (see Table 1).

Table 1. Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 1Q21 (Thousands of Units)

Lenovo recorded a 42.3% year-over-year growth, the highest among the among top six vendors. In contrast to HP and Dell, Lenovo increased shipments of deskbased PCs, largely due to high demand in China. Lenovo grew faster than the regional average in all key regions, with particularly strong growth in Asia Pacific (63.7%). The company also appeared to be more in control of their supply chain, as a higher percentage of its PCs are manufactured in-house compared to other vendors. 

After two consecutive quarters of decline, HP achieved strong year-over-year growth of 34.6%. HP continued to gain traction in Latin America, recording over 60% year-over-year growth in the region. However, it should be noted that HP’s strong growth is attributed in part to a significant decline in 1Q20, as HP was the hardest hit by the supply chain disruption among of the top three vendors at the time. 

Dell experienced the slowest growth among the top six vendors, largely due to the company’s focus on the business PC market, which did not experience as much growth as the robust consumer PC market. In light of component shortages and increasing freight costs, the company also pulled away from low-margin consumer products more than ever before.

These results are preliminary. Final statistics will be available soon to clients of Gartner’s PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. This program offers a comprehensive and timely picture of the worldwide PC market, allowing product planning, distribution, marketing and sales organizations to keep abreast of key issues and their future implications around the globe.
 

About the Gartner Information Technology Practice

The Gartner IT practice provides CIOs and IT leaders with the insights and tools to drive the organization through digital transformation to lead business growth. Additional information is available at https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology. Follow news and updates from the Gartner IT practice on Twitter and LinkedIn using #GartnerIT.
 

About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.

Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and an objective resource for more than 14,000 enterprises in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.

To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.