PC sales are set for their most successful year ever

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The traditional PC is back in demand

Man using desktop PC
(Image credit: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock)

The Covid-19 pandemic has worked wonders for the PC industry, which is recording sales numbers unseen in ages, new figures have claimed.

According to market analysts IDC, PC sales in the EMEA, Western Europe, and CEE regions all recorded strong growth in the first quarter of the year, both in notebook and desktop variants, and both among businesses and consumers. The biggest growth drivers remained hybrid working and remote education.

In the EMEA region, a total of 23.9 million units were sold, up 44.1% year-on-year.

Steady growth

Overall, the Western European PC market grew 42% year-on-year, despite the desktop variant continuing its freefall (-21% year-on-year) among business users. In total, 6.3 million units were sold during the quarter, with even desktops being up 46.6% YoY among consumers. IDC believes the increase in demand for desktop computers is fueled by locked-down consumers turning towards their PCs for entertainment and gaming.

The CEE region’s overall PC market grew by 53.1%, with both the commercial market (33.3% YoY) and the consumer market (69.1% YoY) recording strong performances.

Just like in Western Europe, IDC claims, the demand in CEE was driven by education deals and consumer demand for work from home and entertainment devices.

Top vendors

The top five vendors remained pretty much the same, although when combined, have actually lost a small piece of the overall market share. In total, HP, Lenovo, Dell, Acer and Asus took up 80.5% of the entire market, down from 82.4% in the same period last year.

The biggest challenge for the market will be the shortage of various components, as when the pandemic struck, companies started cutting their chip orders, as they expected less demand. That made the suppliers reduce their output, as well. But instead of it failing, the demand for consumer electronics spiked during the pandemic, resulting in a global shortage.

Sead Fadilpašić

Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.