News PC Sales Dropped Nearly 30% in Q1 With Apple the Biggest Loser

[Admin]

Apple loses 40% of sales year-over-year, market share drops too.

PC Sales Dropped Nearly 30% in Q1 With Apple the Biggest Loser : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

The "problem" with Apple is that since they hold their values so well, people like me who would like an M1 Macbook Air or M1 iPad is that a base M1 Macbook Air (13.3", 8GB/256GB, 7-core) is still $870 on sale and an M1 iPad (WiFi, 64GB) is $600. For hardware going on 3 years old that's still 85% of its launch price in a world with rampant inflation and full of computers which are "fast enough" so you don't need to upgrade is a tough pill to swallow.

 

[InvalidError]

Analysts still failing to acknowledge the reality of the post-COVID demand lull, blaming on-going reduced demand on anything else that pops up to avoid admitting depressed demand will stick for a while longer no matter what. Economic recovery later in the year may help a bit but consumer and office PC sales won't be returning to normal until people rejoin their pre-covid upgrade cycles well beyond 2023.

Also, since most people who had to upgrade out of cycle due to COVID likely ended up with a much faster system than whatever they previously had and couldn't be bothered to upgrade, chances are that their next upgrade cycle will be many years longer than what they had in mind for their previous system.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

Also, since most people who had to upgrade out of cycle due to COVID likely ended up with a much faster system than whatever they previously had and couldn't be bothered to upgrade, chances are that their next upgrade cycle will be many years longer than what they had in mind for their previous system.

That's how I see it as well. During the lockdowns, I purchased an HP Omen with an i9-10850K, 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, RTX 3080. It's still good enough for decent 4K gaming and will still be good enough for high-end 1080P for at least another 4-5 years.

 

[SSGBryan]

Yep.

I built a Ryzen 2700 based system right before Covid hit. A couple of months ago, I replaced the 2700 with a 5700x and the RX 570 (8Gb) with an RTX 3060 (12Gb).

My only upgrade for this year is replacing the RTX 3060 with an A770 (16Gb). And maybe another data SSD.

Taking a pass on AM5, will upgrade to AM6 in 2024.

 

[newtechldtech]

The PC hardware reached a very high level of performance , the need for upgrade is becoming less and less each generation. even gaming notebooks today can play as good as gaming desktops today with acceptable fps. so expect to see more and more sales decline until the software demands faster hardware. rendering as well was a dream on a notebook , now it is possible wit acceptable rendering time ... so ...

 

[Pyrostemplar]

Yep.

I built a Ryzen 2700 based system right before Covid hit. A couple of months ago, I replaced the 2700 with a 5700x and the RX 570 (8Gb) with an RTX 3060 (12Gb).

My only upgrade for this year is replacing the RTX 3060 with an A770 (16Gb). And maybe another data SSD.

Taking a pass on AM5, will upgrade to AM6 in 2024.

AM6 will almost certainly not come out in 2024. 2026 is far more likely.

 

[shady28]

COVID pulled forward upgrades for a ton of home users.

That said the stats for current sales taken in a vacuum are misleading. PC sales globally are in line with where they were pre-covid.

We went from ~250M sales in 2019 to 275M in 2020 and 350M in 2021. The boom continued into early 2022, so this is our first YoY view of sales from the peak.

So yes, a 30% drop would put us right at or just slightly below 2019 levels for 2022 going into 2023. It's not like 2019 was a horrible year though.

All this is not at all surprising and any PC centric companies who were not aware of the possibility of a reversion to the mean are probably too dumb to keep going.

The real question is, what happens now.

 

[InvalidError]

The real question is, what happens now.

The tug-of-war between companies wanting to reduce inventory but not cut prices to whip up sales and people waiting for price cuts because they cannot justify the expense at current prices is up!

Perfect time for a third-party to make a play for market share and initiate a good-ol'-fashioned price war like we haven't seen in ~20 years.

 

[ikjadoon]

COVID pulled forward upgrades for a ton of home users.

That said the stats for current sales taken in a vacuum are misleading. PC sales globally are in line with where they were pre-covid.

We went from ~250M sales in 2019 to 275M in 2020 and 350M in 2021. The boom continued into early 2022, so this is our first YoY view of sales from the peak.

So yes, a 30% drop would put us right at or just slightly below 2019 levels for 2022 going into 2023. It's not like 2019 was a horrible year though.

All this is not at all surprising and any PC centric companies who were not aware of the possibility of a reversion to the mean are probably too dumb to keep going.

The real question is, what happens now.

That's actually precisely what happened to Apple, according to these IDC numbers. Technically, Apple is still a tiny bit above their pre-pandemic average.

7.2m → 4.1m is a 40% drop, but it's also more than Apple solid in Q1 2019 and Q1 2018.

 

[bigdragon]

Looks like we're coming back to pre-pandemic sales levels. It's hard to justify pricey computers with barely incremental performance upgrades when consumers are spending more money on necessities due to inflation, working more from the office or worksite, spending on trips and experiences, and are not receiving stimulus funds. The industry has a lot more competition for funding now.

I wonder if the situation is about to get worse for the PC industry. A lot of tech-focused companies are laying off large numbers of employees, venture capital that backs smaller tech firms is drying up, and crypto mining is no longer a significant factor. Ripple effects from "macroeconomic challenges" may not appear in the sales data yet. Can't buy a new iPad if you just lost your tech job.

Personally, I'm looking for a new 2-in-1 with dedicated graphics. The machines I'm looking at haven't released yet probably because the previous models aren't selling well. Apple is likely facing the same issue with their M1 systems. Can't clear way for the M2 systems when you're unwilling to discount the older hardware to the level necessary to meet market expectations. Way too much greed in vendors still.

 

[bniknafs9]

Thanks to call of duty Mobile.

 

[SSGBryan]

AM6 will almost certainly not come out in 2024. 2026 is far more likely.

You are correct - I was thinking Zen 5 and Zen 6, but wrote AM5 and AM6.

 

[shady28]

...
I wonder if the situation is about to get worse for the PC industry. A lot of tech-focused companies are laying off large numbers of employees, venture capital that backs smaller tech firms is drying up, and crypto mining is no longer a significant factor. Ripple effects from "macroeconomic challenges" may not appear in the sales data yet. Can't buy a new iPad if you just lost your tech job.
..

Might be about to happen, but really hasn't happened yet. Take Google for example, had about 120,000 employees at the end of 2019. End of 2022 they had 190,000, +70,000 or a 58% increase in 3 years.

Now they are laying off 12,000... They get 4 months sev + 2 weeks for every year with Google + benefits. A 5Y Google employee will have 6 months severance.

And 80% of laid off tech workers get a new job in 2 months. 95% get a new job in 12 months.

I can tell you there is definitely still a massive shortage of workers in the tech space. Where I work, trying to hire experienced developers, mostly weeding out scammers and have nothing left. Now hiring recent grads in Bangalore instead. Times are strange.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

The tug-of-war between companies wanting to reduce inventory but not cut prices to whip up sales and people waiting for price cuts because they cannot justify the expense at current prices is up!

Perfect time for a third-party to make a play for market share and initiate a good-ol'-fashioned price war like we haven't seen in ~20 years.

Dell is certainly not waiting. They are heavily discounting many of their products. Their current Alienware desktops are getting price cuts at least by $1000 or more depending on the discount coupons available.

I recently purchased a 16" Inspiron with a touch screen. A year ago they sold for $799 with discounts. Last month they sold for $499. After my order shipped, the same laptop dropped another $50 to $449.