Gartner predicts PC shipments to fall by 9.5% this year

Global PC shipments are set to decline by 9.5% in 2022, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.

“A perfect storm of geopolitics upheaval, high inflation, currency fluctuations and supply chain disruptions have lowered business and consumer demand for devices across the world and is set to impact the PC market the hardest in 2022,” said Ranjit Atwal, senior director analyst at Gartner, in comments published alongside Gartner’s data.

In EMEA, this figure is expected to decline further, by around 14%, with a combination of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, price increases, and unavailability of products from China due to ongoing lockdowns all leading to a softening of consumer demand.

Tablets and mobile phone shipments are also expected to decline over the same period, with Gartner predicting a 9% and 7% fall respectively. The 5G phone market is expected to be hit hard by the downturn too, due largely to the collapse of the smartphone market in China.

Atwal said that at the beginning of the year, the Greater China 5G phone market was expected to show double-digit growth. However, the impact of China’s zero tolerance COVID-19 policy and resulting lockdowns has stopped large numbers of consumers from buying non-essential items, including 5G smartphones.

“The growth rate is significantly down from an expected increase of 47% at the start of the year, with a resulting loss of 95 million 5G phone shipments,” he said.

This global decline is likely to have an impact on chipmakers too. After the release of its Q1 2022 financial results in April, Intel CFO David Zimmer told analysts that component supply constraints were a continuing challenge, with the most recent COVID lockdowns in Shanghai further increasing supply chain risk and contributing to inflationary pressures negatively impacting the PC market.