Worldwide PC shipments totaled 71.6 million units in the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 4.6% from the second quarter of 2020, according to preliminary results by Gartner which also finds Apple’s Mac took 16.1% U.S. market share in the U.S. While PC demand remained above pre-pandemic levels, this was a marked deceleration in growth compared to the record year over year growth of 35.7% in the first quarter of 2021, due in part to the impact of ongoing component shortages.
“The global semiconductor shortage and subsequent component supply constraints have extended lead time for some enterprise mobile PC models to as long as 120 days,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. “This has led to prices increasing in the bill of materials, which vendors have passed on to end users. Moving forward, rising prices could continue to slow PC demand through the next 6 to 12 months.”
While Gartner does not include Chromebooks in its traditional PC market results, Chromebook shipments were once again strong in the second quarter of 2021. The total combined worldwide PC/Chromebook market grew over 10% year over year.
The top three vendors in the worldwide PC market remained unchanged year over year, with Lenovo maintaining the No. 1 spot in shipments.
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q21 (Thousands of Units)
Source: Gartner (July 2021)
Lenovo recorded its fifth straight quarter of year over year growth, although its 3.6% growth trailed that of the overall PC market. Lenovo’s consistent growth can be attributed in part to its in-house manufacturing operation, which enables Lenovo to be in better control of component shortages, in contrast to its competitors that rely primarily on outsourcing.
After a major rebound in shipments last quarter, HP’s worldwide PC shipments declined 11.3% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to a year ago. Supply constraints on enterprise notebook PCs, as well as shipment declines in North America and EMEA, contributed to this drop.
Dell achieved its third consecutive quarter of year over year growth this period, with deskbased PCs seeing particularly strong growth of over 40% compared to a year ago. In contrast, Dell saw only single-digit growth among mobile PC shipments, tied to long delivery times due to component shortages.
The next three vendors — Apple, Acer and ASUS — grew faster than the market, owing to improved availability of consumer PCs. The consumer PC market was less impacted by shortages than the enterprise market, as vendors can be more flexible in the system design of consumer models, enabling workarounds for certain supply constraints.
Regional Overview
After three consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, the U.S. PC market declined 3.7% in the second quarter of 2021. This decline was primarily due to the component shortages, which heavily impacted the enterprise mobile PC market. Mobile PC shipments in the U.S. decreased for the first time in four quarters, dropping 9.5% year over year.
HP once again secured the top spot in the U.S. PC market based on shipments with 28.4% market share. Dell closely followed with 27.7% of the U.S. PC market.
Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q21 (Thousands of Units)
After a year of extremely strong PC demand, the EMEA PC market was in a transition phase during the second quarter of 2021, with total EMEA PC shipments declining 1.9% year over year.
“This past quarter saw the market readjusting to new norms in shipments, inventory and demand after an unprecedented peak in 2020,” said Kitagawa.
The demand for PCs from both consumer and business markets remained strong in Asia Pacific, resulting in 16.5% year over year growth. Echoing global trends, desktop PCs saw stronger growth than mobile PCs in the Asia Pacific region. Notably, the Japanese PC market had a significant decline this quarter of 22.4%. The government-led education device initiative (Global Innovation Gateway for All, or GIGA), which was a major growth driver in the Japanese PC market in the past 12 months, completed its first phase by 1Q21.
MacDailyNews Take: Why don’t Gartner and IDC include iPad in their worldwide and U.S. shipment and market share estimates? You know why.
Apple is the No.1 personal computer maker in the U.S. and the world.
If Gardner includes iPads, then they should include Chromebooks and Android tablets. If you’re going to do it for one, then you need to do it for all.
Gartner does not include iPad sales in its traditional computer category, just Macs and the direct competition. I’m not sure how they count the Surface. If they did include tablets (iPadOS and Android), Apple would have a much higher market share than 14.8%.
Yes, that’s why I said what I did. Surface devices are considered to be classic computers. Tablets are considered to be devices with a tablet OS. Microsoft has some like that (which have not sold well).
Some years ago MDN used to decry the use of data based on computer shipments as against computer sales. So why are we meant to fawn over these statistics now? What has changed that makes these figures any more relevant than they were in the past?
Back then, Apple released the number of units sold to end users. MDN pointed out that it made Apple look bad, because nobody else reported sales. The only numbers available for the competition were estimates of units shipped (which included units sitting in a truck, warehouse or store). Apple finally stopped reporting numbers, so now it is at least possible to do an Apple to Other comparison using numbers that are equally speculative. The units shipped numbers are no more relevant than they ever were, since the real competition is for net profit, which Apple has always won.
Sporting the superlative M1 Silicon and legendary hardware build quality — Apple could easily double or triple market share for implementing a few strategies that come to mind.
1~ Most important LOWER ALL THE PRICES!!! Outrageous SSD and RAM and compete toe to toe — IT managers will take serious notice.
2~ Add more ports again going toe to toe with comparable PCs.
3~ FREE and OPEN the box allowing upgradeable everything with nothing soldered.
If they can spend $3 billion on an exotic Indie film studio they probably do not need while not scratching or putting a dent in the bottom line, surely the profits from increased sales of their No. 2 revenue source would skyrocket.
PC sufferers seeing the light for the first time the halo effect would kick in and increase overall sales of all Apple products easily offsetting the profit margins reduction.
Apple would make more money selling in VOLUMRE than the elitist high price “we rule” smaller share strategy a perception that has plagued them for four decades. ROI is not easily understood or on the minds of the masses, only selling superior products around the same price points…