PC shipments suffer another year-over-year decline in the third quarter, as Apple sees a drop of 23%. Credit: Intel Free Press PC shipments continued to decline during the third quarter of 2023, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker. In its latest report, the tech market research firm said that global shipments declined 7.6% year over year, with 68.2 million PCs shipped, and that downward pressure on pricing continues to be an issue within the consumer and business sectors. The tracker gathers detailed market data in over 90 countries and includes historical and forecast trend analysis. Most of the top five vendors that IDC tracks experienced double-digit declines during the quarter, with Apple faring the worst and seeing an outsized decline of 23.1% — a result of unfavorable year-over-year comparisons, as a company recovery from a COVID-related halt in production boosted shipments during the third quarter of 2022. Meanwhile, HP was the only vendor to experience growth in the third quarter this year, up 6.4% year-on-year, an outcome that IDC attributed largely to the normalizing of the company’s inventory. “The PC industry is on a slow path to recovery as a device refresh cycle and end of support for Windows 10 will help drive sales in the second half of 2024 and beyond. In the meantime, the PC industry will unfortunately experience more pain,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC’s mobility and consumer device trackers, in comments published alongside the report. However, IDC seemed to indicate there were some bright spots, noting that while demand and the global economy remain subdued, PC shipments increased sequentially in each of the last two quarters, slowing the rate of annual decline and indicating that the market has moved past the bottom of the trough. Generative AI could also be a watershed moment for the PC industry, IDC said, adding that while use cases have yet to be fully articulated, interest in the category is already strong, and that the next generation of PCs will be built with onboard generative AI engines. “AI PCs promise organizations the ability to personalize the user experience at a deeper level all while being able to preserve data privacy and sovereignty,” said Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices & Displays, at IDC. “As more of these devices launch next year, we expect a significant boost to overall selling prices.” Related content news analysis AI chip shortages continue, but there may be an end in sight While GPUs are in high demand, they still need high-performance memory chips for AI apps. The market is tight for both — for now. By Lucas Mearian May 07, 2024 7 mins CPUs and Processors Generative AI Technology Industry feature Windows 11 Insider Previews: What’s in the latest build? Get the latest info on new preview builds of Windows 11 as they roll out to Windows Insiders. Now updated for Build 22635.3570 for the Beta Channel and Build 26120.461 for the Dev channel, both released on May 3, 2024. By Preston Gralla May 07, 2024 252 mins Small and Medium Business Microsoft Windows 11 news analysis 3+ reasons Apple might want to make its own server chips Apple reportedly has a top secret plan to make AI chips for servers to provide generative AI services. By Jonny Evans May 07, 2024 5 mins Apple CPUs and Processors Generative AI opinion GenAI is to data visibility what absolute zero is to a hot summer day Given the plethora of privacy rules already in place in Europe, how are companies with shiny, new, not-understood genAI tools supposed to comply? (Hint: they can’t.) By Evan Schuman May 06, 2024 6 mins Data Privacy GDPR Generative AI Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe