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Canalys: PC demand grows but COVID-related supply issues hurt shipment figures

Paul Lipscombe
April 15, 2020

Lenovo topped the charts for overall market share with nearly a quarter of all shipments

PC shipments dropped eight per cent year on year despite the demand for PCs growing during the first quarter of 2020, according to Canalys.

Demand for PCs grew in the first quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus lockdown, with many people forced to remotely work from home.

However the analyst firm revealed that worldwide PC shipments fell due to logistical and production issues caused by the pandemic.

In total 53.7 million desktops, notebooks and workstations were shipped during the quarter, but the eight per cent drop is the largest since Q1 2016.

Canalys research director Rushabh Doshi said: “The PC industry has been boosted by the global COVID-19 lockdown, with products flying off the shelves throughout Q1.

“But PC makers started 2020 with a constrained supply of Intel processors, caused by a botched transition to 10nm nodes. This was exacerbated when factories in China were unable to reopen after the Lunar New Year holidays. The urgency of demand from both the consumer and commercial sectors, combined with the shortage of supply, meant device cost was no longer the key consideration. Instead, speed of supply was the most important factor.”

Canalys does however expect PC vendors to report healthy profits in the coming weeks, as operating margin percentages reach all-time highs.

During the first quarter, Lenovo claimed just under a quarter of the overall market share (23.9 per cent) after shipping 12.8 million units.

Lenovo were followed by HP with 11.7 million units and Dell 10.5m units, while Apple dropped one per cent market share YoY to six per cent, after a difficult quarter, with 3.2 million units sold.

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