IDC

IDC said driving the market's growth at a global level is rising broadband penetration, rising disposable incomes, and rising consumer awareness of smart home devices and the cost savings, convenience, and energy efficiencies that they can deliver.

AR/VR shipments are expected to continue to grow at a healthy rate as contents become more enriched under the influence of new vendors/developers and more options of AR/VR headsets become available to the market, IDC said.

IDC said said automation is changing how employees approach work and there is a stronger need for organizations to accelerate their automation strategies and deployment plans.

The education segment declined, but shipments were still largely above pre-pandemic levels, supported by sizable education projects in Japan, India, Korea, and the Philippines.

Global shipments of traditional PCs, including desktops, notebooks, and workstations, declined 5.1% in the first quarter of 2022 (1Q22) but exceeded earlier forecasts, according to preliminary results from research firm IDC.

IDC data showed that more than 70% of the employees said their productivity was higher or at least at the same level compared to pre-pandemic.

With 143.6 million units shipped globally, 2021 also stood as the best performing year since 2012, when volume was 150.3 million.

Meta's Quest 2 was by far the most popular product with 78% share of the combined AR/VR market during the year.

The worldwide wearables market hit a new record high in the fourth quarter of 2021 as shipments reached 171 million units, up 10.8% from the same quarter last year.

According to research firm IDC, the Philippines tablet market grew by 60% quarter-on-quarter in the fourth quarter of 2021 as smartphone vendors Nokia, realme, and Xiaomi launched their products in the market. This was, however, still down 44.9% year-on-year.