Taipei, London, Hong Kong, Boston, Toronto, New Delhi, Beijing, Seoul – April 28, 2022

Global PC shipments fell 4.3% YoY in Q1 2022 to reach 78.7 million units, according to Counterpoint Research Global PC tracker. Entering 2022, the PC supply chain experienced easing component shortages and logistics issues compared to the second half of 2021. Order backlog from 2021 continued to contribute substantially to PC shipments in the beginning of 2022. This supports our previous view of another PC shipment plateau in 2022.

Our checks suggest the PC supply chain turned relatively conservative on shipment outlook in the middle of Q1 2022, largely dragged by global inflation and regional conflict, which brought uncertainties to PC demand and blurred the overall PC shipment momentum ahead. The overall PC shipments in 2022 are expected to be shy of our forecasts made at the end of 2021.

In addition, COVID-19 lockdowns in China, especially in Shanghai and Kunshan, where many laptop manufacturing lines are located, will cause shipment correction in April. Compared to OEMs, ODMs currently face more issues related to manufacturing resource allocation than component shortage impacts.

Global PC Shipments by Vendor, Q1 2022

Lenovo maintained its lead in the global PC market in Q1 2022 with a 23.1% share, which was down a little compared to 2021. The brand’s total shipments of 18.2 million units were down 9.5% YoY. Lenovo performed well during the pandemic largely due to its in-house manufacturing and operation control. This advantage will continue to help the company in times of demand uncertainty or component supply issues.

HP took a 20.2% share to capture the second spot. The company saw a 16% YoY decline in shipments largely due to Chromebook losing momentum and consumer demand weakness.

Dell, on the other hand, posted a slight increase in its shipments in the first quarter of 2022, riding on the commercial/premium product strategy tailwinds. Dell’s market share expanded by around 100 bps in Q1 2022.

Apple continued its success with the M1 MacBook series to see 8% YoY shipment growth in Q1 2022, which boosted its market share by 100 bps YoY. Asus saw 4% YoY shipment growth thanks to its gaming and commercial products expansion. Acer continued to struggle due to Chromebook sales losing momentum and ended the quarter with a 1% shipment decline. Asus and Acer both had ~7% market share in the quarter.

Component shortages likely to ease in H2 2022

In the past two years, the PC supply chain has spent much effort dealing with demand uncertainties caused by COVID-19 and component shortages. But since late 2021, demand-supply gaps have been narrowing, signaling an approaching end to supply tightness across the broader ecosystem. Among all PCs and laptops, the supply gap for the most important components such as power management ICs, Wi-Fi and I/O interface IC has narrowed. We have seen OEMs and ODMs continuing to accumulate component inventory to cope with uncertainties arising from COVID-19. Combined with the abovementioned consumer and Chromebook demand weakness, we believe component shortages are going to ease in H2 2022.

PC Component Shortage Outlook for 2022