Global PC shipments logged a third consecutive quarter of declines, while remaining above pre-pandemic levels, as Apple Inc. was the only large vendor to show an increase because of delayed orders from the spring’s COVID-19 closures in China.
On Monday, research firm International Data Group reported that third-quarter PC shipments fell 15% year-over-year to 74.3 million worldwide, following up a second-quarter 15.3% decline that marked the sharpest quarterly dropoff in shipments since IDC began collecting data back in the mid-1990s.
“Consumer demand has remained muted though promotional activity from the likes of Apple
AAPL,
and other players has helped soften the fall and reduce channel inventory by a couple weeks across the board,” said IDC’s Mobile Device Trackers research manager Jitesh Ubrani in a statement.
Three months ago, Ubrani said that Apple had been targeting higher volumes, but lockdowns in China and worsening logistics pushed shipments meant for the second quarter into the third.
In the afternoon, investors get to compare IDC’s numbers with those of research firm Gartner, which uses slightly different metrics.
While levels are off year-over-year, they’re still better than those reported before COVID-19, when demand for PCs was driven by business spending from firms shoring up losing support for Microsoft Corp.’s
MSFT,
Windows 7, Ubrani said.
Back in July, numbers reported by IDC and Gartner showed the worst pullback in PC shipments in at least a decade, but 2021 posted some of the best shipping numbers in about a decade, supplying workers with work-from-home infrastructure.
In the third quarter, Lenovo Group Ltd.
992,
increased market share slightly, even as shipments declined 16.1% to 16.9 million units from a year ago, according to IDC. HP Inc.
HPQ,
shipments fell 27.8% to 12.7 million units, Dell Technologies Inc.
DELL,
shipments declined 21.2% to 12 million, and Asustek Computer Inc.
2357,
shipments slipped 7.8% to 5.5 million units, the research firm said.
The only laptop maker reporting a rise in shipments was Apple, with shipments jumping 40.2% to 10 million, according to IDC figures.
Apple shares were up 0.3% at last check Monday, compared with a 0.8% decline in the S&P 500 index
SPX,
and a 1.2% decline in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,