The global PC market recorded a 2.7% increase in shipments in 2019 with 268.1 million units shipped, according to Canalys data. This was the first full year of growth for PC shipments in eight years.
The growth was focused on the three leading vendors – Lenovo leading with 64.8 million units, closely followed by HP with 63 million units and Dell coming in at third with 46.5 million units – which now account for two-thirds of the total PC market.
Canalys research director, Rushabh Doshi warned that 2020 is unlikely to repeat the success of 2019 due to macroeconomic factors that heavily influence the PC industry.
“Key markets including the US, Japan and India are expected to under-perform for the major part of the year. Adding uncertainty to the market is a possible disruption to HP, which continues to be the target of a hostile takeover by Xerox.”
He expects 5G and foldable displays to bring some excitement to otherwise iterative upgrades although vendors remain in experimental phase for these features.
“Foldables suffer from a serious lack of use-cases and demand is unlikely to grow unless second or third-generation devices prove durable. 5G on the other hand, needs ecosystem readiness from network operators and cloud providers to justify the value offering of these devices. Mainstream adoption of 5G and foldable displays is still a good two to three years away.”