The growing shortage of semiconductor components in the market has slowed down the growth rate of the worldwide shipments of PCs. As per Gartner Report, the worldwide PC shipments totalled 71.6 million units in the second quarter of 2021, an increase of 4.6% from the second quarter of 2020.
- Lenovo is the leader followed by HP, Dell and Apple
- HP once again secured the top spot in the U.S. PC market based on shipments with 28.4% market share
- Dell closely followed with 27.7% of the U.S. PC market
While PC demand remained above pre-pandemic levels, this was a marked deceleration in growth compared to the record year over year growth of 35.7% in the first quarter of 2021, due in part to the impact of ongoing component shortages. Lenovo is the leader followed by HP, Dell Apple and so on.
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q21 (Thousands of Units)
Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Numbers may not add up to totals shown due to rounding. Source: Gartner (July 2021)
This report doesn’t include chrome books in its traditional PC market results, Chromebook shipments were once again strong in the second quarter of 2021. The total combined worldwide PC/Chromebook market grew over 10% year over year.
According to Mr Mikako Kitagawa, Research Director at Gartner, the global semiconductor shortage and subsequent component supply constraints have extended lead time for some enterprise mobile PC models to as long as 4 months which has led to prices increasing in the bill of materials, which vendors have passed on to end users. Mr Mikako Kitagawa also expects that moving forward, rising prices could continue to slow PC demand through the next 6 to 12 months.
Lenovo’s consistent growth can be attributed in part to its in-house manufacturing operation, which enables Lenovo to be in better control of component shortages, in contrast to its competitors that rely primarily on outsourcing.
After a major rebound in shipments last quarter, HP’s worldwide PC shipments declined 11.3% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to a year ago. Supply constraints on enterprise notebook PCs, as well as shipment declines in North America and EMEA, contributed to this drop.
Dell achieved its third consecutive quarter of year over year growth this period, with desk-based PCs seeing particularly strong growth of over 40% compared to a year ago. In contrast, Dell saw only single-digit growth among mobile PC shipments, tied to long delivery times due to component shortages.
The next three vendors — Apple, Acer and ASUS — grew faster than the market, owing to improved availability of consumer PCs. The consumer PC market was less impacted by shortages than the enterprise market, as vendors can be more flexible in the system design of consumer models, enabling workarounds for certain supply constraints.
After three consecutive quarters of double-digit growth, the U.S. PC market declined 3.7% in the second quarter of 2021. This decline was primarily due to the component shortages, which heavily impacted the enterprise mobile PC market. Mobile PC shipments in the U.S. decreased for the first time in four quarters, dropping 9.5% year over year.
Table 2. Preliminary U.S. PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2Q21 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 2Q21 Shipments | 2Q21 Market Share (%) | 2Q20 Shipments | 2Q20 Market Share (%) | 2Q21-2Q20 Growth (%) | ||||||
| HP Inc. | 4,292 | 28.4 | 4,960 | 31.6 | -13.5 | ||||||
| Dell | 4,190 | 27.7 | 4,095 | 26.1 | 2.3 | ||||||
| Apple | 2,427 | 16.1 | 2,325 | 14.8 | 4.4 | ||||||
| Lenovo | 2,080 | 13.8 | 2,290 | 14.6 | -9.2 | ||||||
| Microsoft | 651 | 4.3 | 716 | 4.6 | -9.0 | ||||||
| Others | 1,482 | 9.8 | 1,317 | 8.4 | 12.6 | ||||||
| Total | 15,123 | 100.0 | 15,703 | 100.0 | -3.7 |
Notes: Data includes desk-based PCs, notebook PCs and
After a year of extremely strong PC demand, the EMEA PC market was in a transition phase during the second quarter of 2021, with total EMEA PC shipments declining 1.9% year over year.
“This past quarter saw the market readjusting to new norms in shipments, inventory and demand after an unprecedented peak in 2020,” said Mr Kitagawa.
The demand for PCs from both consumer and business markets remained strong in Asia Pacific, resulting in 16.5% year over year growth. Echoing global trends, desktop PCs saw stronger growth than mobile PCs in the Asia Pacific region. Notably, the Japanese PC market had a significant decline this quarter of 22.4%. The government-led education device initiative (Global Innovation Gateway for All, or GIGA), which was a major growth driver in the Japanese PC market in the past 12 months, completed its first phase by 1Q21.
