Tablets and Chromebooks are hot, towers and desktops are not: El Reg combs through Q3 PC numbers
- Reference: 1605618191
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/11/17/canalys_q3_pc/
- Source link:
The total market for computing devices grew 22.7 per cent year-on-year in the three months ended 30 September to 124.4 million units.
The biggest jumps were for Chromebooks, up 122 per cent to 9.4 million, while detachables (including tablets) jumped 88 per cent. "Both categories came to the fore in the context of affordable computing as the pandemic continued to positively influence PC ownership and usage," said Canalys.
Ultraslim portables and convertibles were up 57 and 27 per cent respectively, mobile workstations grew 3 per cent, and clamshell notebooks by 1 per cent.
As for desktops? The only glimmer of growth came from All-In-One PCs, up 7 per cent. Desktop workstations slumped 27 per cent and, worse still, tower and small desktops were down by 33 per cent.
Lenovo led the overall sales stakes by shipping 23.5 million tablets, notebooks, and desktops, up 11.6 per cent, closely followed by Apple with unit sales of 22.075 million, up 40.9 per cent: in tablets alone, Apple flogged 15.23 million iPads, up 47 per cent year-on-year.
"Tablets have come back from the dead as they deliver the perfect balance of mobility and computing power at a wide range of price points during such a crucial time," said Victoria Li, analyst at the research house.
The market has declined continuously over the past five years, according to Canalys numbers. Samsung and Huawei were the other major tablet players in Q3, growing to 9 million and 5.1 million each, up 79.8 per cent and 38.1 per cent respectively.
HP held onto third spit with shipments of 18.68 million, up 10.8 per cent, lifted in part by a whopping 116.9 per cent growth of Chromebooks to 3.235 million, or more than a third of all Chromebooks sold into channels. The majority of HP's Chromebooks were shipped to the US.
Death of the PC? Do me a favour, says Lenovo bigwig: 'I'm expecting the biggest growth in a decade... for 2021' [1]READ MORE
"Chromebooks emerged as the centrepiece of the education segment's digital response to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Ishan Dutt, analyst at Canalys.
"Uncertainty in how school terms will proceed remains at the forefront of educators' minds in the face of secondary lockdowns and protocols related to dealing with infections within a school's population."
The relatively cheaper or "budget friendly" Chromeboks hit the sweet spot, being an "easy to manage contingency," Dutt added.
As for the fourth biggest PC device player in the planet? Dell slipped 0.8 per cent to just over 12 million units. Dell told us previously, when the headline Q3 PC numbers were published in October, that it steered clear of orders where profit margins were less obvious.
COVID-19 has inflated the PC market, [2]growing in Q3 at levels not seen for nine years . Lenovo reckoned it could have sold more product to customers had it not been for component shortages (CPU, ICs, and panels) restricting the volumes available.
Lenovo previously said the total [3]available PC market will continue to expand based on the work and learn-from-home trends but that might be wishful forecasting from a business reliant on PCs. ®
Get our [4]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/07/lenovo_shipment_predictions/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/12/pc_sales_up_2020/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/22/lenovo_work_from_home/
[4] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
This might shock you, but some people use computers for a thing called "programming".
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
Though to be fair, some of us manage it on laptop...
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
I can manage on a laptop, but find it quite tedious compared to working with my biiiiiig screen and proper keyboard. This is not just preference, the productivity on the proper system is significantly higher.
I am aware some people are very comfortable coding on a laptop. I have seen a guy admin-ing his server on an i-phone.
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
Desktops do have the advantage of being quite hard to lose on a train.
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
Using them on a train is somewhat hard, though. Also people complain as soon as one starts the generator.
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
Desktops do have advantages of being cheaper to buy, cheaper to upgrade, and easier to upgrade. If you do not need portability a desktop is a reasonable option. Also, they are much harder to lose or forget.
Re: Who NEEDS a desktop?
Please, pretty please, do upgrade your laptop's memory, graphic card, motherboard or processor. in under 10 minutes.
OK, make it 1 hour but you must not use exotic screwdrivers, pliers, heat guns, scalpels or any of the tools used by iFixit.
Re: that's only for cooling
Nope. It's also for the 28" widescreen to play on in 3184x2600 pixels, plus the secondary 26" widescreen to keep an eye on open connections, stats and, eventually, a YouTube video.
Best of both worlds?
High spec laptop + something like a USB C dock with a 40" screen*, keyboard, wired network and power when working in the office.
It does feel like I've got blinkers on when developing code on the train, but I can live with that when I have to ;-)
*Though I am starting to think 3 x 40" screens would be nice...
Who NEEDS a desktop?
The only people I know that _NEED_ a desktop are people playing video games (and that's only for cooling). For everyone else it's tablets/laptops or the extreme opposite which is full on server/home labs. That said, a "desktop" is still cheaper than a laptop for general purpose but, I'm actually surprised they still sell "classic" desktops and haven't moved strictly into "thin client" for what remains in that territory.