PCs have been at the heart of the IT industry since their introduction in the mid 1970s. In recent years the market fell due to competition from advanced smart phones and tablets and the shift in IT usage away from the ‘creation’ to the ‘streaming’ of content. From 2014 to 2019 the installed base of PCs worldwide flat-lined (see my Figure above). However the market was reinvigorated by the lockdowns and the moves to work from home brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 2020 saw significant growth, which has continued in the first two quarters of 2021.
There has been a lot of vendor consolidation over the last few years – in particular as Japanese, European and American full-range suppliers moved from manufacturing their own PCs to buying them in from the large suppliers who enjoyed even better economies of scale as a result. of the major brands Lenovo built a lead over the others through its acquisition of IBM’s PC business back in 2005 and the extraordinary demand for its products from the Chinese market. The glip in its market share in 2018 (and the increase in HP and Microsoft’s) was partially due to trade sanctions imposed by the US government under President Trump. Even on this unit shipment basis Apple has grown to become the fifth largest supplier; it’s growth in revenues has been more impressive, making it the fourth largest vendor – impressive for the only supplier with proprietary products and its own operating system.
When it comes to market shares of revenues, shipments and installed base in the year to the end of Q1 2021 (see my Figure above) Lenovo was the clear leader, followed by HP and Dell in order. Samsung took the fourth spot in terms of shipments and installed base, but made less revenue than Apple in the year.
The USA has remained the strongest country market for PCs since the inception of the market in the late 1970s and remains so to this day. Annual shipments in China grew three-fold between 2005 and 2020 (see my Figure above where I compare PC shipment volumes in the largest country markets. The four other large country markets have shown less growth over the years, although Germany has maintained its fourth position as a country market.
PCs have become even more useful tools for many since the start of the pandemic, with the growth in sales coming from companies buying corporate machines for those forced to work from home and from families for students forced to engage in online rather than in-class learning. The PC remains a very American product even if the leading brand, most of the assembly and almost all of the components are Far Eastern. I hope manufacturers will focus on reducing the environmental impact of PC production in coming years – massive economies of scale are no use if they increase the exploitation of the Earth’s resources.