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The PC industry is finally turning a corner after reporting its worst sales in 17 years in 2023. According to Gartner’s preliminary results, PC shipments increased for the eighth consecutive quarter for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2023.
During the quarter, the industry shipped a total of 63.3 million units, an increase of just 0.3% year-over-year. Adding these up, the industry as a whole moved 241.8 million PCs, an overall decline of 14.8%, and the last time shipments were below 250 million in 2006. This is the first time since then, Gartner said.
“The PC market has undergone a significant correction and has bottomed out,” Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa said in a release. “Inventories normalized in the fourth quarter of 2023, but this was an issue that had plagued the industry for two years. This delicate growth is due to the fact that supply and demand are finally in balance. It suggests that.”
But Kitagawa warned that the balance may not last long, as economic and geopolitical instability could fundamentally undermine the PC market’s return to growth. Although the PC market recovered in the fourth quarter, there are still many vulnerabilities in the global market. China in particular has proven stubbornly slow to recover.
Overall, Gartner said Greater China dragged down Asia-Pacific’s performance, with shipments down by up to 8%. The EMEA region experienced the greatest growth in shipments, increasing by 8.7%. Shipments to North America also increased.
This turnaround, however small, comes at a critical time for the PC industry, as Microsoft, chipmakers, and PC makers push the concept of AI PCs as the next big growth opportunity for laptop and desktop PCs. happened.
An AI PC is loosely defined as a PC with some kind of neural processor that can run AI programs natively. Nvidia (NVDA) also says that PCs running its graphics chips and cards are AI PCs. This is because AI programs run better on that kind of hardware.
Microsoft (MSFT) is especially keen to add AI capabilities to consumer devices, launching AI-powered Windows Copilot on Windows systems and bringing the Copilot key to Windows laptop and desktop keyboards .
Industry watchers largely expect 2024 to be a recovery period of sorts for the PC industry, as the laptops and desktops that consumers and businesses purchased when the pandemic began in 2020 begin to age and become unusable. There is. As the world began to shut down, millions of people started buying PCs so they could work and play during the lockdown.
As a result, PC sales fell off a cliff because consumers and businesses had little reason to upgrade during that time. But as those systems start to become obsolete, demand is increasing again.
This will help many companies other than PC makers, including chip makers, memory makers, and other component makers. Like Microsoft, which makes billions of dollars selling Windows licenses to OEM partners, so too will Intel (INTC), AMD (AMD), and his Nvidia as consumers reach for new laptops and desktops. It should be supported.
Daniel Howley I’m the technology editor at Yahoo Finance. He has been covering the technology industry since his 2011. You can follow him on Twitter. @Daniel Howley.
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