PC sales have turned around with shipments up in Q1 2024, now almost at pre-pandemic levels

After being in a prolonged slump for some time now, it appears that the PC market is in recovery, with a small - but nonetheless notable - amount of growth recorded in the latest figures from a big analyst firm.

IDC's latest report on global PC sales shows that in Q1 2024 there were 59.8 million devices shipped, which represents growth of 1.5% year-on-year.

Indeed, this is almost a return to pre-pandemic sales, as if we look back five years to Q1 2019, there were 60.5 million sales - so in 2024 we are nearly back at that level of shipments.

For the curious, the definition of PCs here includes laptops, but not tablets (and it also includes workstations).

Breaking down the top vendors, Lenovo is still in pole position on 13.7 million units, but it isn't that far ahead of HP on 12 million, with Dell in third place running at 9.3 million. Apple remains in fourth place, although still some way off the pace on 4.8 million units worldwide for Q1.

IDC observes that inflation coming down in countries across the world has helped buoy the PC market.

Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager at IDC, further noted that:

"Despite China's struggles, the recovery is expected to continue in 2024 as newer AI PCs hit shelves later this year and as commercial buyers begin refreshing the PCs that were purchased during the pandemic."

So, things are looking up for 2024 after some consistently shaky sales over the past couple of years. Microsoft is certainly pinning a lot of hopes on its AI PCs and the plan to push Copilot to be central to the everyday computing experience of Windows users.