Worldwide PC market — desktops, notebooks and workstations — increased by 25 percent in Q4 2020 from a year ago to a record 90.3 million units, Canalys said.
Strong demand in the holiday season led to a third consecutive quarter of sequential growth, with shipments in Q4 up 13 percent sequentially over what was a stellar performance in Q3.
PC shipments in 2020 grew 11 percent to 297 million units. This represents the highest full-year growth since 2010 and the highest shipment volume since 2014.
Worldwide PC market growth in 2020 was singlehandedly driven by notebooks and mobile workstations. Shipments of these devices increased 44 percent from 2019 to reach 235.1 million units. Conversely, desktop and desktop workstation shipments fell 20 percent from last year to reach 61.9 million units in 2020.
Lenovo held first place in the PC market in Q4 with record shipments of 23.1 million units and growth of 29 percent. Lenovo shipments touched 72.6 million units and a market share of 24.5 percent in 2020.
HP took second place in the annual rankings, with Q4 shipments of 19.1 million units, bringing its 2020 total to 67.6 million units, up 7 percent over its 2019 number.
Third-placed Dell ended 2020 with a bang, with Q4 shipments up 27 percent to break the 15-million mark for the first time in its history, bringing its 2020 total to 50.3 million units.
Apple and Acer took fourth and fifth place, shipping 22.6 and 20.0 million devices, respectively.
“Innovations in chipsets, operating systems, connectivity and form factors will take center stage as the PC industry caters to a broader range of customers that bring with them new behaviors and use cases,” Ishan Dutt, analyst at Canalys, said.
From Apple and Microsoft’s new custom silicon to the exciting platform updates to Chrome and Windows, the PC industry is moving at breakneck speed to cater to its newfound user base. Supply shortages continue to dampen the PC market in the short term.
