Wednesday, October 9th 2024
Global PC Shipments Dip Slightly Despite Recovery Economy, But AI Integration is the Key to Future Market Success
Even though the global economy shows signs of recovery, worldwide shipments of traditional PCs dipped 2.4% year-over-year (YoY) to 68.8 million units, during the third quarter of 2024 (3Q24), according to preliminary results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. Factors including rising costs and inventory replenishment led to a surge in shipments in the previous quarter, resulting in a slightly slower sales cycle.
"Demand, without a doubt, has returned for PCs amongst consumers and commercial buyers," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "However, much of the demand was still concentrated at the entry-level thanks to a recovering economy and the back-to-school season in North America. That said, newer AI PCs such as Copilot+ PCs from Qualcomm along with Intel and AMD's equivalent chips as well as Apple's expected M4-based Macs are expected to drive the premium segment in coming months."
"While we expect AI to reach ubiquity at some point at the end of this decade, the ramp up towards mass market will take longer than expected, well into 2026," states research vice president of devices and displays, Linn Huang. "The next year-and-change will be largely about developing software, use cases, and target audiences for this AI-enabled hardware."
Commercial demand outside the education sector also remained strong as many businesses have begun to refresh their PCs in preparation for the end of support for Windows 10. Key markets such as Japan grew double digits during 3Q24 and is leading this transition, but IDC expects other markets to follow suit in the coming quarters. Meanwhile, Apple had a strong 1H24 and YoY comparison base before its new products are expected to launch.
"After two quarters of mild growth, the market is taking a breather before going into the year-end buying period," said Bryan Ma, vice president with IDC's Worldwide Device Trackers. "Downside risks remain in the current geopolitical environment, but we think there is enough upside going into next year to lift the market into modest single-digit growth."
"Demand, without a doubt, has returned for PCs amongst consumers and commercial buyers," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "However, much of the demand was still concentrated at the entry-level thanks to a recovering economy and the back-to-school season in North America. That said, newer AI PCs such as Copilot+ PCs from Qualcomm along with Intel and AMD's equivalent chips as well as Apple's expected M4-based Macs are expected to drive the premium segment in coming months."
Commercial demand outside the education sector also remained strong as many businesses have begun to refresh their PCs in preparation for the end of support for Windows 10. Key markets such as Japan grew double digits during 3Q24 and is leading this transition, but IDC expects other markets to follow suit in the coming quarters. Meanwhile, Apple had a strong 1H24 and YoY comparison base before its new products are expected to launch.
"After two quarters of mild growth, the market is taking a breather before going into the year-end buying period," said Bryan Ma, vice president with IDC's Worldwide Device Trackers. "Downside risks remain in the current geopolitical environment, but we think there is enough upside going into next year to lift the market into modest single-digit growth."
27 Comments on Global PC Shipments Dip Slightly Despite Recovery Economy, But AI Integration is the Key to Future Market Success
And the way the whole industry is focusing on selling to AI content providers, servers etc. there won't be any need for faster CPUs and GPUs, no need for bigger storage, we are all just content consumers, and for that you can use phone or tablet.
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.Guess that's corporate talk for "We don't think it will blow up in our collective faces, not this year."
I think essentially this sums it up quite well:
Here's the real world variant of that video:
You mean when you finally get some relief from lowering interest rates (which still means prices generally increasing - something people don't seem to still understand) so your real take home pay starts becoming more effective, the first thing you do isn't buy a new PC?? Instead you pay off any outstanding debts, maybe spend money on things like your house or car or whatever you actually might need to... you know... live your life...?? Buying food... What's wrong with you all?
AI is not going to save squat in terms of making sales.
Rick & Morty's "That's Amorte" episode pretty much nails that point "generally people don't really care about how" at the end of the episode (albeit expanding on the whole 'guilt free' marketing shtick used these days) - example referred to as most recent media example I can think of but same could be said for the Black Mirror "Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too" episode (which is arguably more relevant).
And then we hear price must go up for things we already had. I would be SO happy if I had everything on-demand, like Office, my gaming, my food... Its going to be a lovely way to live your life with a yearly 'inflation' of 10-20%. Xbox Game Pass has already gone that way, if people haven't noticed. Not just a price hike, but a complete confusion commercial clusterfuck to go with it, so you hopefully get lost enough to take some subscription.