PC Sales Falling but Perhaps Not Prices
upstart writes:
Prices of PCs have been trending upwards recently; that could be changing:
Cooling demand plus supply chain problems meant PC shipments declined 15% year on year in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022, totaling 74.2 million units, according to IDC's preliminary count in its worldwide personal computing device tracker.
Shipments by Lenovo, HP, Dell and Asus were all down for the quarter. Apple's share of the PC market, which includes desktops, notebooks and workstations, is now 13.5%, up from 8.2% in the same quarter a year ago, leaving Apple as the only vendor with growing shipments - up 40% on the same time last year.
In a nutshell, high-end PCs are selling well as consumer and education sales have slowed. Shipments of cheaper PCs have continued falling since 2021, amid inflation fears and the industry's supply chain woes, with vendors manufacturing fewer Chromebooks as they pursue profits in higher-end Windows PCs.
Gartner noted that to maintain profits as inflation leads to increased costs, the PC industry wants to raise average selling prices (ASPs) despite weakening demand. The reduction in the mix of PCs from Chromebooks, which tend to have low price points, and the shift to premium products also helped increase the average ASP - but an increase in inventory, especially in the consumer channel, could cause an ASP decline as vendors try to lower inventory.
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