Inflation and political instability lead to steep fall in sale of PCs
Worldwide sale of PC is on its way to fall 9.5% in 2022 partly explained by high inflation, geopolitical upheaval after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, marketing an research firm Gartner predicts. It will be the steepest decline of all device segments this year and a sharp contrast to the first quarter last year when people were working from home and PC sale noted fastest growth in two decades, an increase of 32% from the first quarter of 2020.
“Consumer PC demand is on pace to decline 13.1% in 2022 and will plummet much faster than business PC demand, which is expected to decline 7.2% year over year.”
From a regional perspective, the EMEA PC market is forecast to record a 14% decline in 2022, driven by lack of consumer PC demand. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, price increases and unavailability of products due to of lockdowns in China are significantly impacting consumer demand in the region.
“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,” says Ranjit Atwal, the company’s senior director analyst.
Overall, global shipments of total devices (PCs, tablets and mobile phones) are on pace to decline 7.6% in 2022, with Greater China and Eastern Europe including Eurasia recording double-digit declines.
While global mobile phone shipments are expected to decline 7.1% in 2022, smartphone shipments are estimated to decrease 5.8% year over year. Regionally, Greater China will be hit the hardest with smartphone shipments on pace to decline 18.3% in 2022.
In 2022, worldwide 5G phone shipments will total 710 million units. While this is an increase of 29% from 2021, it is down from previous expectations. “The growth rate is significantly down from an expected increase of 47% at the start of the year, with a resulting loss of 95 million 5G phone shipments,” said Atwal.
The demand for 5G phones is expected to pick up at a faster pace in 2023. “Much of the migration to 5G will occur by default as users will replace older 4G smartphones at the end of their life cycle with 5G-compatible smartphones”.
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