The personal computing (PC) market is set to experience a massive decline with an expected 9.5 percent drop in shipments globally in 2022, according to the latest forecast from 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, Gartner.
“Consumer PC demand is on pace to decline 13.1 percent in 2022 and will plummet much faster than business PC demand, which is expected to decline 7.2 percent year over year.”
The EMEA PC market is forecast to record a 14 percent decline in 2022, driven by lack of consumer PC demand. According to Gartner, the market slump is primarily driven by ongoing geopolitical challenges as well as several pandemic-driven border lockdowns, which have resulted in price increases and unavailability of products.
Overall, global shipments of total devices (PCs, tablets and mobile phones) are on pace to decline 7.6 percent in 2022, with Greater China and Eastern Europe including Eurasia recording double-digit declines.
Additionally, global mobile phone shipments are also expected to decline 7.1 percent in 2022, smartphone shipments are estimated to decrease 5.8 percent year over year. Regionally, Greater China will be hit the hardest with smartphone shipments on pace to decline 18.3 percent in 2022.
“At the beginning of the year, the Greater China 5G phone market was expected to show double-digit growth,” said Atwal.
“The impact of China’s zero tolerance COVID-19 policy and resulting lockdowns have dramatically reversed this trend. Large numbers of consumers stopped buying non-essential items including 5G smartphones.”
In 2022, Gartner expects worldwide 5G phone shipments will total 710 million units. While this is an increase of 29 percent from 2021, it is down from previous expectations.
“The growth rate is significantly down from an expected increase of 47 percent at the start of the year, with a resulting loss of 95 million 5G phone shipments,” said Atwal.
Global smartphone sales rebounded as consumers increase spending
The demand for 5G phones is expected to pick up at a faster pace in 2023. “Much of the migration to 5G will occur by default as users will replace older 4G smartphones at the end of their life cycle with 5G-compatible smartphones,” said Atwal.
