IDC Now Sees Two Years of PC Sales Declines

After predicting that PC sales would fall in 2022, IDC has revised its forecast and it now expects a sales shortfall in 2023 as well. Tablet sales are also expected to fall in 2022 and 2023, it says.

“Though demand is slowing, the outlook for shipments remains above pre-pandemic levels,” IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani says. “Long-term demand will be driven by a slow economic recovery combined with an enterprise hardware refresh as support for Windows 10 nears its end. Educational deployments and hybrid work are also expected to become a mainstay driving additional volumes.”

IDC says 2022 and 2023 will be “tumultuous” for hardware makers, with PC sales now expected to decline 12.8 percent in 2022 to 305.3 million units, worse than its initial estimate of 8.22 percent. Tablet sales, meanwhile, are expected to fall 6.8 percent to 156.8 million units. Combined PC and tablet sales will also fall 2.6 percent in 2023 before returning to growth in 2024, the firm estimates.

Looking to the future, IDC doesn’t expect either product type to experience their pandemic sales peaks. But economic recovery, future refresh cycles, and enterprise upgrades “could” propel growth. IDC also expects the consumer market to drive towards more premium ends of the market going forward.