As the “Pandemic effect” diminishes, in which the numbers of pc sales skyrocketed due to the rise of teleworking, the demand for new PCs by users; according to the latest global PC sales report published by the firm Gartner, the figures are plummeting to alarming levels, and in fact have suffered the biggest drop recorded in the last 9 years, which could cause the hardware price come down but… are we in a crisis again?
It is evident that (almost) no user is going to buy a new PC every year, since on average they usually last between 5 and 6 years at least. During the pandemic, many people decided to invest in buying a new PC or laptop to be able to work from home, which is why PC sales increased significantly… but it is also clear that now, more than two years later, these Users still have their PCs relatively new and are not going to buy another one, so sales figures have plummeted.
The worst PC sales of the last 9 years
It should be noted that when sales reports of this nature are published, they are really looking only at sales of OEM equipment, that is, desktop PCs and laptops that are sold already assembled and working, and do not have into account the PCs assembled by pieces or the personalized ones that many stores sell (which, after all, are PCs assembled by parts by themselves), so the figures should be a little better than what we are going to show you below.
As we can see, hp, steel Y lenovo They are the ones that have suffered the most, with double-digit falls, with HP being the biggest loser with a drop of 27.5%. Other manufacturers like Dell either ASUS they have also suffered a detriment in the sales of their equipment, but really much lower than that suffered by the previous ones, although it is also true that their market share is lower, especially if we compare it with Lenovo, which is the brand that sells the most.
The most curious thing about this table is, without a doubt, that a company like Manzana It is the only one that has ended with a positive balance, especially considering that here we are dealing with figures of units sold, not monetary income. This means that those from Cupertino have sold more laptops and Mac computers than in the same period last year, and it is still curious because we all know the pricing policy that this company has. This data, however, contrasts with the IDC publication that shows that in the US Apple has fallen by 22.5%.
The PC is not in crisis, but the price of hardware will drop
Looking at the sales figures, many will say that the PC market is in crisis, and of course suffering a drop like not seen for 9 years is not good news. However, personally we do not believe that the PC market is in crisis, far from it… what happens is that if many people renewed their PC during the pandemic, it is normal for years to pass before they do it again, and what we can guess is that after the 5-6 years on average that PCs usually have until the average user renews them, there will be a spike in sales again (at least that’s what logic says).
We are going to explain this with an example: think that a PC “lives” 5 or 6 years, and that when the pandemic began, 10 users (to say a number) bought a new PC. Logically, in the next 5-6 years these 10 users will not buy a new PC, although some of them may, but after that time, all those users will want to renew their PC at almost the same time, and at that time It will be when the sales figures rise again.
Therefore, we do not believe that the PC market is in crisis, simply many people bought new PCs at the same time with the pandemic and it is normal that now sales have dropped, but they will rise again when all these users have to renew their teams. Now, when sales go down, it would be normal for the price of the hardware to do so too… we’ll see.
