IT distributor revenue in North America fell 5.5 percent to $17.85 billion in the first quarter of 2024, according to the latest IDC report.
The IT distributor market in North America continued to rebalance following pandemic disruptions as enterprise hardware spending was pulled down by a decline in Network Infrastructure and consumer devices revenues were down 9 percent despite growth in traditional PCs, IDC said.
“The market continues to face headwinds including cautious buyers, attention shifting to AI and security, and difficult comparisons to prior years,” said Ruth Flynn, research vice president, IDC Tracker & Data Products. “Passing challenges for PCs and Network Infrastructure as well as prospects for a stronger economy set the stage for growth later in the year and into 2025.”
Software and Services are the largest categories, growing 4.6 percent and 1.2 percent respectively with software recovering from a 2 percent decline in Q4 2023. Application spending remained down while infrastructure software drove growth. Spending on support services remained weak continuing the trend seen in 2023.
Network Infrastructure revenue was down 18 percent to $1.85 billion in the first quarter, following growth averaging over 24 percent between Q4 2022 and Q3 2023 with a peak in growth of over 42 percent in Q2 2023.
Personal Computing business declined 2.5 percent to $3.2 billion. Traditional PCs led the category with slightly positive growth while other products, including Tablets, Point of Sale Systems, and Thin Clients, continued to decline.
The PC market is expecting a refresh cycle to begin later this year as users anticipate the end of support for Windows 10 in October 2025. Anticipated updates to Apple’s iPad line are also expected to boost the Tablet market going forward.
