Third-quarter data from IDC show another year-over-year decline in PC sales, but more sequential growth. Apple Mac shipments plunged 23.1% in the quarter.
Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg
Global personal-computer sales slumped 7.6% in the third quarter from a year ago to 68.2 million units, according to International Data Corp. But IDC also noted that the quarter marked a second straight quarter of sequential increases, “indicating that the market has moved past the bottom of the trough.”
The third-quarter shipments were up from 61.6 million in the second quarter, and 56.9 million in the first quarter.
IDC said that PC sales-channel inventory “has become leaner in the past few months and is nearly healthy.” But the research firm also said that “downward pressure on pricing persists and will likely remain an issue within the consumer and business sectors.”
Lenovo was the market leader in the quarter, with shipments of 16 million units, off 5% from a year ago.
HP
(ticker: HPQ) shipped 13.5 million PCs in the quarter, up 6.4% from a year ago. IDC said that the strong quarter from HP reflects “normalizing of inventory.”
Dell Technologies
(DELL) shipped 10.3 million units in the quarter, IDC estimates, down 14.3% from a year ago.
Meanwhile, the report found that
Apple
(AAPL) Mac shipments were 7.2 million in the quarter, down 23.1% from a year ago. Mac sales had spiked in the year-ago third quarter following production issues in the second calendar quarter of 2022. Apple Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri had warned on the company’s June quarter earnings call that both Mac and iPad sales would likely be down double-digits in the September quarter.
Gartner also reported third-quarter PC shipment data, finding a similar pattern. The research firm said that worldwide PC shipments were 64.2 million, down 9% from a year ago, but like IDC said that there is “evidence that the PC market’s decline has finally bottomed out.”
Gartner
said that seasonal demand from the education market helped sales, while enterprise PC demand remained weak.
Gartner’s data for individual companies would was comparable to IDC’s data, except regarding Apple. It estimated Apple shipped 6.3 million units, below IDC’s call of 7.2 million.
Gartner is projecting 4.9% growth for worldwide PC shipments in 2024.
Write to Eric J. Savitz at [email protected]
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