Almost everyone is feeling the pinch from the cost-of-living crisis, and it turns out PC vendors are no exception, if new analysis from Gartner is to be believed.
The analyst house has predicted that worldwide PC shipments will decline by 9.5% to 310 million in 2022. Although consumer demand is set fall considerably faster, demand for business computers and business laptops will also drop 9.5% year-over-year.
EMEA is set to see a record dip in consumer PC demand throughout 2022, which Gartner attributes to factors such as how the Russian Ukraine conflict is impacting exchange rates.
Is it just PC sales that are falling?
Though PC sales are set to be hit the hardest out of all the technology segments, mobile and tablet segments are also set for significant declines, according to the analyst house.
Gartner predicts that tablet sales are set to drop 9.0% in 2022 to 142 million, after rising 5.0% in 2021. Mobile phone sales aren’t set to fair much better, predicted to drop 7.1% in 2022, after growing 5.0% in 2021.
One area of the electronics market that is set to grow is 5G phones. In 2022, Gartner expects worldwide 5G phone shipments will total 710 million units.
Although this is a downgrade from Gartner’s previous expectations, the demand for 5G phones is expected to pick up at a faster pace in 2023.
“A perfect storm of geopolitics upheaval, high inflation, currency fluctuations and supply chain disruptions have lowered business and consumer demand for devices across the world and is set to impact the PC market the hardest in 2022,” said Ranjit Atwal, Senior Analyst at Gartner.
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