Global personal (PC) shipments left the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022 with a record-high year-over-year (YoY) decline of 27.8% to reach 65.2 million units, according to Counterpoint Research data. However, Apple’s Mac did pretty well, all things considered.

Apple’s comparatively tiny 3% YoY shipment decline in Q4 2022 helped the company close the book with a flattish shipment volume performance for 2022. Apple kept gaining market share at the expense of x86-based vendors and recorded a double-digit share in the second half of 2022 and 9.4% in the full year. Arm-based M-series models helped the company weather the slump cycle in both consumer and commercial devices in 2022.

While Apple’s YoY sales were down 3%, Lenovo’s was down 29%, HP’s was down 29%, andDell’s was down 37%. Apple is the fourth largest global PC vendor.

Although inventory levels of several PC makers likely peaked in the third quarter of 2022, the year-end season failed to accelerate the PC shipment momentum in the fourth quarter, according to Counterpoint Research. At 286 million units, the total PC shipments for 2022 also reflect a muted global PC demand with four consecutive quarters of YoY shipment declines. Therefore, Counterpoint Research isn’t expecting a decent rebound in H1 2023.

From the research group’s report: Macroeconomic headwinds, increasing inflation pressure and frozen PC demand affected the global PC market in 2022, with shipments declining 15% YoY. Besides, consumers who bought new PCs were still enjoying the latest models, whereas enterprises were working more carefully on their budgets. Also, the lack of appealing functions and financial support could not bring in incremental demand in 2022, not to mention the aggressive inventory digestion target of OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] since H1 2022.




Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today