What you need to know
- 2020 and 2021 have been big years for the PC market thanks to a worldwide pandemic necessitating work-from-home (WFH) technology.
- However, the massive uptick in people scrambling for PCs is set to dwindle in 2022.
- The forecasts for 2023 and beyond also paint a conservative picture of years to come.
IDC has released its forecast for the next few years stretching through 2025, revealing its expectations for the PC sector's five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR). The prediction is that from 2022 onward, the market won't see the spikes of double-digit growth it has enjoyed throughout 2020 and 2021.
IDC's Jitesh Ubrani explained the rationale behind the company's estimates. "The market has pulled past peak pandemic PC demand," Ubrani stated. "While we have seen some slowing of consumer demand in certain segments and markets, demand for gaming remains an exception and overall consumer demand is well above pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, the onset of saturation in some education markets is another cause for lower expectations in the coming quarters."
As can be seen in IDC's graph, 2021 brought the market to heights 2022 likely won't even have a shot at coming close to. With that said, PCs are still expected to cling to growth, though it'll be at modest single-digit percentages. Tablets, on the other hand, are expected to dip into the negatives and see growth declines.
What this means is that the contents of 2022's various OEM financial reports is anyone's guess. Though HP, Dell, and Lenovo all saw big gains in the PC sector over the past few years, the question is how much of that growth they'll be able to maintain going into next year assuming the circuit slows down as expected.
