The traditional PC market (desktops, notebooks, and workstations) in Asia-Pacific (including Japan and China) posted a 16.1% decline in 2023 to 97.4 million units, according to research firm IDC.
Shipments are not expected to rebound significantly in 2024 due to weak demand and a slow economic recovery, IDC said.
“In 2023, the Asia-Pacific region decreased year-on-year (YoY) in all quarters as the overall demand for devices continued to decline across the consumer and commercial segments,” said Matthew Ong, senior market analyst for devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
“Purchases were soft given that a good portion of demand was already fulfilled during the Covid-19 pandemic, and ongoing challenging economic conditions didn’t help either. Market players were faced with high inventory levels and had to limit shipments to avoid overstocking channels, especially in the first half of the year.”
The consumer PC market declined by 17.4% to 48.5 million units. Desktop shipments dropped by 22.0% while consumer notebooks fell by 15.8% YoY.
Inflation and an increase in interest rates led to weak purchasing power while a shift in consumers’ spending priorities further impacted demand, IDC said.
The commercial PC market decreased by 14.8% to 48.8 million units. In the private sector, businesses were cautious with IT spending and had to reduce orders or delay PC replacements amid unfavorable macroeconomic conditions.
Public sector shipments also came in lower than in recent years as pandemic-driven demand slowed down, resulting in fewer projects.
In 2024, traditional PC shipments in Asia-Pacific are forecasted to record a mere 0.4% growth with volumes forecasted at 97.8 million units.
The PC market is expected to remain weak in the first half of 2024 before experiencing some growth in the second half of the year, especially in China and Japan. The former is due to an expected economic recovery that should spur PC purchases whereas the latter is anticipated to see a pickup in replacement demand for PCs that were purchased during the spike seen in 2019 before the Windows 7 End of Support.
“While 2024 is expected to remain a challenging year for the PC industry, new technologies such as on-device Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as an anticipated rebound in consumer demand and an increase in commercial renewals are expected to lead to 7.9% growth in 2025, as consumers and businesses start refreshing the devices purchased during the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Maciek Gornicki, senior research manager for devices research at IDC Asia-Pacific.
“While the AI PC concept brings a lot of buzz and excitement into the market, businesses and end users are likely to replace their fleet of devices more gradually under economic uncertainty, with AI-enabled PCs slowly replacing existing machines over the next several years. As a result, the market is likely to witness rather moderate growth, fueled mainly by the upcoming commercial refresh, education projects, and some rebound in consumer demand,” Gornicki said.
