Last year, the PC market grew by only 1.3%, but this year the situation will be better, Gartner analysts predicted

The river of time has carried us far enough away from last year that Gartner specialists have the opportunity to summarize the results of the PC market not only for the fourth quarter, but also for 2024 as a whole. PC shipments have been growing for five quarters in a row; according to the source, last quarter they grew by 1.4%, and at the end of 2024 they increased by 1.3%.

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Traditionally, Gartner’s data is somewhat at odds with IDC’s statistics, which claimed that PC shipments grew 1% last year to 262.7 million units. According to Gartner, only 245.3 million PCs were shipped to the global market last year, but this number grew by 1.3% year-on-year. According to Gartner, PC shipments have fallen below 250 million units for two years in a row, showing a correction from the “fat” figures that characterized the pandemic.

In the fourth quarter, as Gartner representatives emphasize, PC shipments grew year-on-year by only 1.4% to 64.4 million units, and the need to update corporate fleets due to the end of support for Windows 11, as well as the demand for PCs with processors , allowing artificial intelligence to be accelerated locally, did not particularly affect demand. For many consumers, PCs with such processors remain too expensive, and in parts of Europe and China, macroeconomic issues are limiting demand for new computers.

Image source: Gartner

According to Gartner representatives, in 2025 the factors contributing to the growth of demand for PCs will become stronger. In the fourth quarter, there were no changes among the six largest PC manufacturers in terms of market share, but they performed mixed. Market leader Lenovo increased its supply volumes by 4.2% and increased its share to 26.3%, but HP Inc. (-1.7%) and Dell Technologies (-0.1%) showed negative dynamics, although they retained second and third places, respectively. Apple in fourth place showed good growth of 4.6%, but the leader in the dynamics of increasing PC shipments was Asus with its 9.8% increase. Acer closes the top six with shipment growth of 3.6% and market share of 6.4%. It is these six companies that together control 86.7% of the global PC market. Gartner statistics include desktop and mobile PCs running Windows, macOS or Chrome OS.