Could this be more bad news for the display industry that was hoping for a bigger upgrade cycle in IT products this yea? The North American IT distribution sector saw a 5.5% decrease in revenue year-over-year in the first quarter of 2024, amounting to $17.85 billion, according to IDC. The market is recalibrating after pandemic-induced changes, with significant downturns in enterprise hardware investment, particularly in Network Infrastructure, and a 9% reduction in consumer device revenues, despite a marginal increase in Traditional PCs.
Specifically, Network Infrastructure revenues fell 18% to $1.85 billion in the first quarter, after meeting heightened demand in 2023, which cleared existing backlogs. This follows an earlier surge in demand, with growth peaking at over 42% in the second quarter of 2023.
Revenue in the Personal Computing sector slightly fell to $3.2 billion, a 2.5% decrease from the previous year. In this category, Traditional PCs showed a small gain, while other products such as Tablets, Point of Sale Systems, and Thin Clients saw further declines. The sector is anticipated to gain momentum later in the year, spurred by the upcoming end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025 and expected new releases in Apple’s iPad lineup.
