Back in early 2021, Gartner said that fourth quarter 2021 PC shipments declined 5% and, now, in early 2022, it is saying fourth quarter 2022 PC shipments declined 28.5%. In 2021, the yearly growth was still 10%, but in in 2022, we are going to see a drop of 16.2%. Hold on to that data.
Preliminary Worldwide PC Vendor Unit Shipment Estimates for 2022 (Thousands of Units)
| Company | 2022 Shipments | 2022 Market Share (%) | 2021 Shipments | 2021 Market Share (%) | 2022-2021 Growth (%) |
| Lenovo | 68,997 | 24.1 | 83,449 | 24.4 | -17.3 |
| HP Inc. | 55,558 | 19.4 | 74,181 | 21.7 | -25.1 |
| Dell | 50,007 | 17.5 | 59,560 | 17.4 | -16.0 |
| Apple | 27,911 | 9.8 | 26,944 | 7.9 | 3.6 |
| Asus | 20,662 | 7.2 | 21,634 | 6.3 | -4.5 |
| Acer | 18,708 | 6.5 | 24,256 | 7.1 | -22.9 |
| Others | 44,353 | 15.5 | 51,703 | 15.1 | -14.2 |
| Total | 286,197 | 100.0 | 341,727 | 100.0 | -16.2 |
Source: Gartner (January 2023)
Bloomberg’s now saying, Apple is going to be adding touch screens to Macs in 2025. Cue some indignation because, as true Apple stans know, Steve Jobs didn’t think touch screens for suitable for Macs, and never would be.
Based on current internal deliberations, the company could launch its first touch-screen Mac in 2025 as part of a larger update to the MacBook Pro, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private.
Bloomberg
Let’s connect the two stories. On the one hand, you have to be a real glutton for punishment if you think that PC sales are going to bounce back to historical heights, even after post-pandemic and post-macroeconomic corrections. And I said that because you can simply view Apple’s move into touch screens for its personal computing devices as an acknowledgment that all anyone wants is giant smartphones with keyboards.
The contrary opinion is that Apple has run out of big things it can do with its computers and, in the absence of innovation in hardware and software, it is just going to steal more supplier eal estate for itself and to leverage manufacturing in-house to squeeze costs. That’s pretty standard: Microsoft did a pretty good job of killing off third party developers on Windows by simply bundling free versions of their products that it had developed itself As for the PC market making a comeback? Other than hobbyists, and people who still remember the glory days of Duran Duran with fondness, yeah, you just need giant smartphones with keyboards to do most everything you need to do and the PC paradigm is kind of hackneyed and played out.
