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Pandemic proves just the tonic for PC sales as shipments shoot upwards

Supply chains are working again

Global PC shipments climbed back into recovery mode for the second quarter thanks to increased demand from the surge of home working.

PC makers shipped 2.8 per cent more devices in the second quarter of this year to a total of 64.8m units, according to researchers at Gartner. Analysts at IDC were more bullish, putting the number at an 11 per cent jump year-on-year to 72.3m.

The upswing is good news for PC makers, who saw shipments go off a cliff in Q1 after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted international supply chains. The PC market had previously shown signs of recovery over 2018 and 2019 as buyers bought new kit to cover end of support for Windows 7.

Both Gartner and IDC agreed that HP and Lenovo topped the shipments list, each accounting for about a quarter of total shipments. Dell came in at a distant third place, with about 16 per cent of shipments.

The companies both said growth was thanks to strong growth in Europe and the US. Gartner says that shipments in the EMEA region grew 20 per cent in the second quarter, while the APAC market declined 8.1 per cent.

“The strong demand driven by work-from-home as well as e-learning needs has surpassed previous expectations and has once again put the PC at the center of consumers’ tech portfolio,” Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC, said in a statement.

“The second quarter of 2020 represented a short-term recovery for the worldwide PC market, led by exceptionally strong growth in EMEA,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “After the PC supply chain was severely disrupted in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the growth this quarter was due to distributors and retail channels restocking their supplies back to near-normal levels." ®

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