The latest global PC shipment numbers from IDC make for sobering reading. According to the research firm, the world PC market shrank 7.2% in the third quarter, compared to the same period in 2022, and will likely decline 13.8% for the full year. In 2021, the market dropped 16.6%, marking two consecutive years of double-digit declines.
IDC sees some chinks of light at the end of the PC market tunnel, pointing to a long-due commercial refresh cycle coinciding with the beginning of a migration towards Windows 11 as the key demand driver next year. Still, a predicted growth rate of 3.4% next year is hardly anything to get excited about.
Over the longer term, the firm expects growth to surpass pre-Covid shipment levels and reach 285 million units a year by 2027 at CAGR of 3.1%. Not surprisingly, it sees the integration of AI capabilities into PCs as the main catalyst.
The industry has a lot of work to do if it is to come anywhere near close to that forecast. Now that the big iron for the data centre and the big LLMs have been built, it needs to figure out how to cascade all the generative AI goodness down to small footprint models and applications that deliver real user value when running on a PC or a smart phone. The market will not grow on PC refresh cycles alone.
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