PC market grows despite the component shortage. Despite almost a year of shortage of components such as processors, the PC sales market continues to rise.
Studies by the consulting firms Gartner and IDC corroborate historical sales data that have not been seen for at least a couple of decades, with double-digit growth in PC sales. And all this even though we are experiencing a year of stock-outs and manufacturing shortages in components as essential as microchips.
Suffice it to say, as an example of these sales figures, that during the first quarter of 2021 as many computers have been sold as in the whole of 2020. The curious thing is that the data provided by the two consulting firms mentioned above differ in terms of the proportion of growth Comparing the first quarter of 2021 with the same period of 2020: for Gartner, there would be a 32% growth while for IDC this would rise to 55%. This translates into a range between 70 and 84 million PC units.
This variation may be because Gartner does not include in its statistics the sales of Chromebooks, which would have experienced triple-digit sales growth during the first quarter of 2021 compared to 2020, thanks to purchases made by educational institutions in the United States, as a result of the widespread use of tale teaching.
Growth limited by processor shortage
While the growth reflected by these two consultancies is very broad, both agree that it could have been even higher in the absence of the current problems of processor stock shortages, a problem that has also affected various sectors, from home consoles to the automotive industry.
This has also led to higher prices for some equipment as well as longer waiting times for delivery. Finally, a conclusion that Gartner and IDC also agree on is that PC demand will remain high for the rest of 2021.
