• The global PC market’s shipments grew 1% YoY in Q3 2024, dragged by resilient Q2 pull-in demand.

• Apple’s M4-based MacBook Pro featuring a 10-core CPU could be another exciting product launch in Q4.

• Even with back-to-school demand, Q3 no longer shows a significant peak season effect for the PC industry.

• We believe the holiday season can continue this positive momentum with YTD 2% YoY shipment growth.

Seoul, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, London, New Delhi, San Diego, Taipei, Tokyo – October 11, 2024

The global PC market’s shipments grew 1% YoY in Q3 2024 to reach 65.3 million units, according to Counterpoint Research’s preliminary projections, continuing the positive YoY growth momentum that began in Q1 2024. Despite the early pull-in orders in Q2 and relatively mediocre demand in China and Europe in Q3, the shipments were still ~5% higher than that in Q2, mainly driven by ongoing replacement demand before the end of Windows 10 security updates and technical support in 2025, and increasing sales of AI PCs.

With the inventory level largely normalizing in H1 2024, PC vendors are moving forward to launch more new models. Lenovo saw its fourth consecutive YoY shipment growth quarter in Q3. The brand has regained 25% market share since Q4 2020, riding on the trend of replacement cycle. HP and Dell remained resilient in the quarter, supported mainly by demand in the North American market and increasing enterprise orders. Apple was relatively quiet in the quarter as the market waited for its M4-based laptops and desktops. The M4-based MacBook Pro featuring a 10-core CPU could be another exciting product launch in Q4.

Source: Counterpoint Research

Since 2021, even with the back-to-school shopping season, Q3 has not been as strong as it was in pre-Covid days. We believe this is due to the change in the working environment and lifestyle, as well as the procurement strategy on the enterprise side.

Commenting on the AI PC and PC market, Senior Analyst William Li said, “We have observed incremental demand for GenAI PCs, especially for laptops, after AMD and Intel’s new CPU platform launches in Q3 2024. However, people are still looking at killer applications of the AI PC to add value to their day-to-day missions, which we believe will likely happen in the short term and boost shipment growth.”

To summarize, we expect the demand from Windows 10 replacements to diminish, with AI PCs taking over to continue the growth momentum. We believe the holiday season can continue this positive momentum with YTD 2% YoY shipment growth.

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Background

Counterpoint Technology Market Research is a global research firm specializing in products in the TMT (technology, media, and telecom) industry. It services major technology and financial firms with a mix of monthly reports, customized projects, and detailed analyses of the mobile and technology markets. Its key analysts are seasoned experts in the high-tech industry.