Analyst house IDC released its latest quarterly PC-shipments forecast, saying that demand growth will finally return to the market in 2024, following declining sales post-COVID,
The future of the personal computer is happily linked to the sudden explosion of artificial intelligence (AI). A PC revolution is in the offing to take on some AI tasks that currently require sending data back and forth between the desktop and the cloud. This applies to time-sensitive instances like gaming or translation.
But there are more reasons- Say hello to the AI PC.
AI and personal computers
Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said in a recent earnings call that “we see the AI PC as a critical inflection point for the PC market over the coming years.”
The Meteor Lake processors are due in September 2023, shifting Intel to AI with an algorithm that can understand and predict how a user will open a web page, scan it, close it, and move on.
What’s different is that the algorithm taught itself by extracting patterns of behavior
IDC analysts wrote that “we could be seeing some of the biggest shifts in commercial PC history.”
Read: Historic global slowdown for the PC market in Q3: Report
Another factor driving commercial PC revival in 2024 and into 2025 is the end of Windows 10 support in October 2025
At the Microsoft Build developer conference, NVIDIA and Microsoft showcased a suite of advancements in Windows 11 PCs and workstations with NVIDIA RTX GPUs to meet the demands of generative AI.
Since the beginning of 2023, Microsoft has been steadily implementing GenAI-powered features to its popular services such as the Bing search engine, Edge browser, and Microsoft 365 suite of apps, Word, PowerPoint, and others.
Now, Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise are supported in the Chrome desktop browser for not just Windows devices but also Macs, and Linux-based computers. It plans to expand them to other browsers on PCs and smartphones soon.
PC market to grow, but down for now
PC shipments are forecast to grow 3.7 percent year-on-year to hit 261.4 million units in 2024, putting them above 2018 levels.
Meanwhile, 2023 is predicted to sink by 13.7 percent to 252 million units.
Q1 2023 saw an overall 25-30 percent drop among PC vendors.
Global smartphone sales down, but not for long
Smartphone shipments are predicted to drop 4.7% globally this year, according to IDC which forecasts 1.15 billion devices in 2023, the lowest volume in a decade.
In its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker data published Wednesday, IDC pointed to a weaker global economy and ongoing inflation as the cause for the drop.
IDC originally forecasted a 3.2% decline.
Nabila Popal, research director with IDC’s Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers team, said that while inventory levels have normalized, phone makers are still cautious and are “yet again kicking the recovery can down the road.”
There are better days ahead, though.
“As consumers hold onto their devices longer, the bright side is they are willing to pay more,” Popal said. “Which will in turn help average selling prices to rise for the fourth consecutive year in 2023.”
IDC believes sales volume in 2024 will grow 4.5 percent year-over-year.
While shipments of Androids are expected to decline 6% year over year, IDC expects shipments of the iPhone to actually increase by 1.1%, enabling an all-time high market share of 19.9% for the latter.
The iPhone 15 is expected to launch this September.
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