A mixture of supply problems, the saturation of the education market and rising inflation have contributed to fewer and fewer PCs being purchased.
US PC sales are down 23 percent in the second quarter of 2022.
This means that in the second quarter of 2022 a total of 19.8 million units were sold.
This is apparent from an announcement from the analysis company Canalys, which every quarter provides a status on computer sales.
It is especially the number of notebooks sold that drags down the overall picture.
Sales of notebooks fell by 27 percent in the period. However, it must be seen in the light of the fact that Chromebooks had an unprecedented success in the market a year ago, and that since then there has been a declining demand among consumers.
Falling PC sales four quarters in a row
“The US PC market has seen four consecutive quarters of declining sales,” said Brian Lynch, research analyst at Canalys.
Despite this, overall sales figures have remained high when compared to pre-corona pandemic levels.
Brian Lynch considers the market to be quite healthy, although it is facing various challenges in the form of inflation, a slowdown in the education market and problems with supplies, as a result of Chinese corona lockdowns.
Consumer surveys show, according to the analyst, that PC sales have the potential to revive, but that this requires users to shake off the historically high inflation.
Businesses accounted for half of all PC purchases
PC sales only avoided a bigger drop due to a resilient business sector that continues to have strong demand for PCs, despite high inflation numbers and the threat of a recession on the horizon.
This segment bought 11 percent more computers in the most recent quarter and accounted for half of all sales in the quarter.
Despite generally poor figures for companies, unemployment remains at 3.5 percent, which is the lowest unemployment rate in 20 years.
“Some companies have made big news with big layoffs, but there are still twice as many job postings as there are job seekers, which shows a strength (at the companies, ed) that is going to pad the commercial PC market, so it in the short term will not experience a serious decline,” says Brian Lynch.
Dell remains in the leading position, while HP is experiencing a large decline
It is still Dell that maintains its leading position as the company that sells the most desktops and notebooks, the figures from Canalys show.
Even so, the company is back a little bit, down 3 percent this quarter.
In second place in terms of units sold is HP, which has had difficulty repeating its great success with the number of Chromebooks that were highly sought after last year, but due to saturation, HP has sold 43.5 percent fewer PCs this year than the year before.
However, this is a slight improvement compared to last quarter, when HP experienced a drop of over 60 percent.
Lenovo takes third place despite a 21.5 percent decline in the most recent quarter.
Apple, which has had problems with deliveries due to corona shutdowns in China, occupies fourth place and has experienced a drop of 13.7 percent.
Acer occupies fifth place on the list with a 17.2 percent decline in PC sales.
Apple remains the leader in the tablet market
On the tablet market, Apple experienced a decline of 12.2 percent in iPad sales in the past quarter, but still occupies first place in sold tablets.
The demand for high-end products has slowly started to decline, however, after the boom that tablets experienced during the corona pandemic.
Amazon has found a formula for success at the cheaper end, taking second place with almost 10 percent more tablets sold in the past quarter.
Samsung also suffered a 9.1 percent drop in the number of tablets sold, as they – like Apple – experience falling demand for high- and mid-end tablets.
In fourth place is TCL, which has had the greatest growth among all the tablet providers. The company has had a growth of 160 percent in the last quarter. This is mainly due to an increased marketing effort in the USA as well as affordable prices.
Microsoft rounds off the top 5 with a small growth of 3 percent, this is mainly due to the fact that their Surface tablet is considered to be a strong alternative to notebooks.