The covid-19 pandemic fueled the video games industry and PC sales, but things are rapidly changing with the world going back to its” normal” lockdown-free self. According to Gartner’s report, the global PC market declined by 12.6% in the second quarter of 2022, and per the report, this is the sharpest decline in nine years.
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Gartner’s data says the worldwide PC sales were approximately 72 million units, on a year-over-year basis that’s nearly a 13% decline. The report suggests the main reasons behind the steep decline are the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, the cost of the living crisis caused by inflation, overpriced GPUs, and a steep downturn in demand for Chromebooks according to Mikako Kitagawa of Gartner.
Kitagawa’s expert opinion is as follows:
“To maintain profits as inflation increases costs, the PC industry is having to raise average selling prices (ASPs) despite weakening demand. The reduction in the mix of PCs from Chromebooks, which tend to have low price points, and shift to premium products also helped increase the average ASP. However, an increase in inventory, especially in the consumer channel, could cause an ASP decline as vendors will try to lower inventory.”
According to the report, only Apple has seen growth during this three-month period, both compared to the previous quarter and year-over-year. Apple’s sales were up 9.3%, mainly because of the new homegrown chips by BigTech.
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Another data provider and analysis company, Ampere Analysis, suggests the demand will continue to decline for PC units, and they’re expecting nearly a billion dollars fall from $35.3 billion to 34.2 billion.
The PC hardware market is subject to a number of unexpected changes though, especially given how one of the main components has been overpriced for years now due to chip shortages and miners.
