In the third quarter, year-over-year PC shipment declines in the United States were 12.1%. The top manufacturers are Dell, HP, Apple, Lenovo, and Acer, while only Apple and Acer saw positive growth during that time. According to Canalys, desktops climbed by 1% while notebook sales declined by 14%. More conservative business expenditure, along with weaker demand from the consumer and education sectors, were the main causes of the significant decline in laptop shipment volume.
According to Brian Lynch, a Canalys Research Analyst, “the U.S. PC market was already in a protracted phase of recession as both consumer and educational demand suffered with inflation and saturation.” The business sector, which was once robust, has now started to dwindle and posted its first year-over-year loss in 2022.
Even though the third quarter was extremely difficult for PC suppliers, the fourth quarter’s prospects aren’t any better. The American holiday season should boost sales a little, but generally, Canalys predicts that the market will continue to decline. People are reducing back on their purchases of technology devices as a result of rising prices.
According to the analyst, things will start to improve in 2023. It anticipates that demand from the educational sector will begin to slowly increase the following year, with the bulk of equipment upgrades taking place in 2024.
Apple and Acer were the only two businesses, as was previously indicated, to have positive year-over-year growth in Q3, although Dell was able to maintain its top position. Dell had a market share of 26.1%, down from 27.6% the year before. The vendors’ market share and units shipped are as follows:
Other than stating that there will be “additional headwinds,” Canalys did not go into much detail regarding future consumer demand for PCs. From a macroeconomic standpoint, the Federal Reserve is continuing to raise interest rates, which may result in additional job losses and higher debt payments, further reducing disposable income. The length of the recovery period will determine when consumer demand for PCs will start to increase.