We had been hearing that for a while PCs were going to cease to exist. The post-PC era so indicated in the past has waned and we are seeing sales surpassing 300 million Windows devices per year. Computers appear to be having a golden age in part because of the pandemic.
The PC market saw its first big growth in a decade during 2020, when the pandemic started forcing people to work and learn from home. Market research companies Gartner and IDC now report that the global personal computer market has grown again throughout 2021, despite continued demand for traditional computers during the global chip shortage.
PC sales maintain the upward trend of the year 2020
According to the consultation report Gartner, in 2021 they were sent nearly 340 million PCs. This supposes an increase of almost 10 percent respect to the unprecedented numbers of 2020. For its part, another highly relevant consultancy in this medium, IDC, places the figure in 348.8 millionalmost 15% more.
“2021 has truly been a return to form for the PC”, said Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC. “Consumer need for PCs in emerging markets and global business demand remained strong during the quarter, with supply a limiting factor”. Ongoing supply issues related to global chip shortages mean the PC market ‘could have been even bigger than it was in 2021’according to Tom Mainelli, an executive at IDC.
Gartner reports that 2021 saw the highest volume of PC shipments since 2013, following a milestone in 2017 of five years of decline in PCs. “As a result, annual PC shipment volumes are not expected to decline to pre-pandemic levels for at least 2-3 years.”explains Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner.
Another important factor is the release of Windows 11 that encourages some older computers to be renovated to use the new operating system. It seems that Microsoft has chosen the right moment to launch a new operating system in the face of the barrage of sales. Between 2020 and 2021 they could mean more than 500 million computers upgradeable to Windows 11.