PC shipments fell 15% in the second quarter to 71 million, the second quarterly decline in a row after two years of growth, according to IDC on Monday.
Apple fell to fifth place in the rankings of PC makers in a statistical tie with Asus. Both companies fell behind Acer in fourth. Lenovo, HP and Dell finished first, second and third respectively.
IDC said the decline was worse than expected because of fears of recession and weakened demand as well as Covid lockdowns in China.
PC shipments and sales are often an indicator of future revenues for chipmakers, although major companies like Intel, Nvidia and AMD have diversified chip sales across PCs and servers used in data centers. AMD has recently taken note of declining PC demand.
Barclays Capital analyst Blayne Curtis cut price targets recommended to investors on both Intel and AMD on Monday after seeing estimated laptop production declines of 17% in June. AMD shares dropped more than 2% in trading early Monday.
Last week, the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization said chips sales globally were up by 18% in May compared to a year earlier, reaching $52 billion.
Consumers are being more cautious about spending and can resort to computing with their phones and tablets, not only PCs, while businesses appear to have delayed PC purchases, IDC said.
Despite the gloomy report, IDC said the PC market is still well above pre-pandemic levels. The second quarter tally of 71 million compares to second quarter totals of 62 million and 65 million in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
MAC production slipped in the second quarter, but IDC said Apple is expected to ramp up production in the last half of the year.
Lenovo had nearly 25% of all PC shipments at 17.5 million, a 12% decline from a year earlier. HP had 18.9% with 13.5 million, and Dell had 18.5% with 13.2 million.
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