Global PC exports grew by 45 percent annually to 75.6 million in the first quarter of 2021, according to a market research report.
Lenovo retained its market leadership, followed by HP and Dell. The growth in shipment of major PC vendors is expected to continue in the coming months.
However, the global chip shortage that has contributed to the supply of essential components – following the outbreak of COVID-19 last year – is expected to continue to affect the global PC market in the second half of 2021.
Market research firm Counterpoint reported data on PC exports worldwide in the first quarter.
The company said the strong demand in various stages and low base at the same time last year due to the coronavirus outbreak were some of the main reasons for the growth.
Lenovo led the market again in the first quarter of 2021 with a 24 percent share, followed by HP with 23 percent, Dell with 17 percent, and Apple with nine percent, according to Counterpoint.
The report said market forces were driven largely by the growth of sports books and demand from the labor and domestic sectors.
However, the turnover rate dropped by 14 percent in the second quarter of 2020 due to the season, the report said.
The growing demand for computers (especially textbooks) is expected to continue in the second quarter. Counterpoint also said the top six retailers will continue to dominate the market with a combined share of more than 85 percent.
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Foretelling the trends of the future, Conterpoint said premium models with very high retail prices could dominate the market with huge promotions. However, that growth could adversely affect the growing shipping of Chromebooks to some extent.
Counterpoint said the market will see 16.3% annual growth by 2021, with exports reaching 333 million.
However, apart from the expected growth, the continued shortage of chips is likely to affect the market.
The firm said it found a 20-30 percent gap between orders (end demand) and actual delivery of key items including an integrated power management circuit (IC), display driver IC and CPUs.
Integrated power management circuits (PMICs) and integrated driver circuits (DDICs) are said to face significant gaps in PC computing and supply, with their lead time (total time from start to end of production) almost doubled due to the coronavirus epidemic. .
Counterpoint noted that while the supply of PC CPUs began to improve by the end of the first half, some vendors faced difficulties in meeting the demand for items such as audio codec IC and LAN chips. Wi-Fi SoC deployment was also at a low level of development.
“As we do not see a significant expansion of the fry base at H2 2021, it is unlikely that the lead time for IC priorities will recover from the current situation.
Therefore, PC brands and ODMs cannot completely solve the deficit problem and erase the backlog of orders, ”said William Li, semiconductor analyst and inventory researcher at Counterpoint.
The supply chain gap, which started in the second half of 2020, is expected to continue for some time. But Conterpoint said it should be gradually phased out in the first half of 2022.
Towards the end of May, Dell and HP warned while announcing their quarterly earnings that chip shortages would have a significant impact on the supply of their PC until the end of the year.
The market saw its highest annual growth in a decade in January.
