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Worldwide sales of personal computers slid further in the first quarter, dragged by a sharp drop in sales of Chromebooks, a research company said late Monday.
Gartner said global PC shipments fell 7.3% in the quarter to total 77.5 million units, according to its preliminary results. At this time last year, the market had its highest growth in decades, the company said.
Chromebooks had “unprecedented” sales surges in 2020 and in early 2021, thanks to increased demand from the U.S. educational market amid pandemic-related shutdowns and distance-learning schedules. “That growth has tempered,” said Mikako Kitagawa, a research director at Gartner.
See also: The pandemic PC boom gave personal computers their biggest year in nearly a decade
Excluding Chromebooks, the worldwide PC market grew 3.3%, Gartner said. Slowed consumer demand also contributed to the market’s downward trend, as discretionary spending shifted away from devices, the research company said.
Sales of business PCs, however, saw growth in the first quarter of 2022 “as hybrid work and the return to offices created demand for desktop devices,” Gartner said.
Related: The pandemic PC boom is over, but its legacy will live on
Lenovo Group Ltd.
992,
maintained its No. 1 spot in total global shipments at 23.6% market share, with HP Inc.
HPQ,
and Dell Technologies Inc.
DELL,
rounding out the top three, Gartner said.
U.S. PC sales fell 16.5%, with the U.S. suffering “the most significant impact from weakened Chromebook sales,” the company said. Dell was the No. 1 U.S. PC seller, with 27.1% market share, followed by HP with a 22.7% share.
