A 15% Decline In PC Sales Is Quite Telling
The IDC received quite an unpleasant surprise when they crunched the numbers for PC sales so far this year. Lenovo’s sales were down 12.1%, HP down 27.6% , Dell dropped by 5.3%, Acer by 19.2% and even Apple saw a 22.5% drop in sales. That let to a cumulative drop of 15.3% compared to this time last year, a fairly significant number. There are certainly a lot of reasons for this, up to and including the obvious reason that no one likes to talk about.
One of the biggest hits to sales came from Chromebooks; they enjoyed a big jump in sales until now, for it seems that everyone who wants a Chromebook now has one. That doesn’t account for the entire drop in sales but certainly had a noticeable impact overall and specifically for HP. The same is true for schools and businesses which dealt with the transition to remote connections; the spike in purchasing is now over as the users all have the equipment they need.
The Shanghai lockdown was another reason that sales dropped, as it severely impacted the supply of semiconductors, but overall one has to wonder if it is the reason left unspoken that had the greatest effect most recently. We shall see if this is true in the next two quarters; will sales improve from the current numbers that roughly match the industry in 2020 or if we see a resurgence of sales.
