Reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced many people across the world to be working from home has spurred an increase in the shipment of Personal Computer (PC), as the total number of PCs shipped in Q2 2021 hit 71.6 million globally, a 4.6% increase compared to a year-ago period.
According to data presented by StockApps.com, after impressive sales figures in 2020 and a record-breaking first quarter of 2021, global PC shipments continued rising in the second quarter of the year with the global demand for PCs, including notebooks and desktop PCs, continues to be very strong in the enterprise market and the consumer space.
Quoting Gartner survey, StockApps says global PC shipments rose by 3.2 million units in the second quarter of 2021 compared to a year-ago period. Still, this was significantly less than the growth reported in Q1 2021, when global PC shipments jumped by almost 36% YoY to 69.8 million units. The slowdown in PC sales growth was primarily caused by the ongoing component shortages, which have extended lead time for some enterprise mobile PC models.
The Gartner data showed Lenovo remained the market leader with $17.3 million PCs shipped in the second quarter of the year, 3.6% more compared to Q2 2020 figures. This was also the company’s fifth straight quarter of year-over-year growth. One of the main drivers of Lenovo’s consistent growth is its in-house manufacturing operation, which enables the Chinese tech giant to control better component shortages, unlike its competitors who mostly rely on outsourcing.
One of the best examples is the world`s second-largest PC vendor HP, whose global shipments dropped by 11.3% YoY to 14.3 million units in the second quarter of the year. Significant shipment declines in North America and EMEA countries and supply constraints on enterprise notebook PCs both contributed to this drop.
Apple and ASUS Witnessed the Biggest PC Shipments Growth
As the third-largest PC vendor globally, Dell saw its third consecutive quarter of YoY growth. The US tech corporation shipped 12.2 million PCs worldwide between April and June, 14.4% more than in Q2 2020. The Gartner data revealed this was primarily due to impressive desk-based PC sales, which surged by 40% YoY in that period.
Statistics show that Apple and ASUS grew faster than the market in the second quarter of the year, owing to the improved availability of consumer PCs. This segment of the PC market was less impacted by shortages than the enterprise market, as vendors can be more flexible in the system design of consumer models, enabling workarounds for certain supply constraints.
Apple shipped over 6 million PCs worldwide between April and June, almost a 20% increase year-over-year. Asus followed with a 16% YoY growth in this period and more than 4.2 million shipped units.