News: 1626073568

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Desktop PC sales bounce back – but only because of laptop component shortages

(2021/07/12)


The PC market racked up another boom quarter in Q2 2021, but analyst firm IDC also found “mixed signals” about future demand.

IDC’s latest Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, announced today, finds that worldwide shipments of traditional PCs – desktops, notebooks, and workstations – reached 83.6 million units in 2Q21. That’s a 13.2 per cent jump compared to Q2 2020, when the world went home to work.

Here’s the tale of the tape for the quarter:

Company

2Q21 Shipments

2Q21 Market Share

2Q20 Shipments

2Q20 Market Share

2Q21/2Q20 Growth

1. Lenovo

20,005

23.90%

17,407

23.60%

14.90%

2. HP Inc.

18,594

22.20%

18,104

24.50%

2.70%

3. Dell

13,976

16.70%

12,010

16.30%

16.40%

4T. Apple

6,156

7.40%

5,630

7.60%

9.40%

4T. Acer

6,088

7.30%

5,177

7.00%

17.60%

Others

18,795

22.50%

15,551

21.00%

20.90%

Totals

83,614

100.00%

73,879

100.00%

13.20%

When considering those numbers, The Register was struck by HP Inc’s 2.7 per cent year-on-year growth and shrinking market share. HP can’t be pleased by that outcome. At least it appears not to have lost out to its keenest rivals, as the large pool of “other” vendors grew faster than Lenovo and Dell. Apple also went slightly backwards on market share.

IDC noted that while 13.2 per cent shipment growth is a number the PC industry would have been very pleased with at almost any moment in previous years, it’s well down on the better than 55.9 per cent growth in Q1 2021 and 25.8 per cent growth in Q4 2020.

[1]Dell bigwig: Expect another 6 months of supply woes. Oh, hello Windows 11

[2]The M in M1 is for moans: How do you turn a new MacBook Pro into a desktop workhorse?

[3]Microsoft CEO gets a side hustle — Satya Nadella made Chair of Microsoft board

“The market faces mixed signals as far as demand is concerned,” said Neha Mahajan, a senior research analyst with IDC’s Devices and Displays Group. “With businesses opening back up, demand potential in the commercial segment appears promising. However, there are also early indicators of consumer demand slowing down as people shift spending priorities after nearly a year of aggressive PC buying.”

The analyst firm also spotted that desktop PC growth outpaced that of portable computers, attributing the blip to “shortages that greatly impacted the supply of notebooks” rather than a comeback. ®

[4]

Bootnote. IDC ranks Apple and Acer in a tie for fourth place, per its practice when there is a difference of one tenth of one per cent (0.1%) or less in the shipment shares among two or more vendors.

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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/08/dell_uk/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/29/m1_macbook_to_desktop_workstation/

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/17/satya_nadella_microsoft_chair/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YOwSwPHiJWZq-Gmyiby99QAAABY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[5] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



Could You Get Fired for Visiting Slashdot?

PADUCAH, KY -- Matt Johnson, an employee at Paradigm Shift Consulting, Inc.,
was fired from his programming job because of his addiction to Slashdot.
Johnson typically visited Slashdot several times a day during working hours.
Citing productivity problems, Johnson's boss gave him the pink slip and
instituted a 'NoDot' policy -- no visiting Slashdot or related sites from the
office, ever. Now Johnson has filed a lawsuit, claiming that his Slashdot
addiction is protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Matt Johnson explained, "They discriminated against me because I'm a Dothead.
Drug abuse and alcoholism are often considered handicaps. Why not Slashdot
addiction?" Johnson's boss sees the situation differently. "Matt never got
any work done. He was always visiting Slashdot, Freshmeat, or some other
nerd website. And when he wasn't, he suffered withdrawl symptoms and
couldn't think straight. A few months ago he spent eight consecutive hours
posting comments in a KDE vs. GNOME flame war. I tried to offer assistance
to overcome his addiction, but he refused. Enough is enough."

The company's 'NoDot' policy has been under fire as well. One anonymous
employee said, "We can't visit Slashdot because of Matt's addiction. This
just sucks. I really don't see anything wrong with visiting Slashdot during
breaks or after hours."