PC market 2022: Experts expect 10 percent decline

The Corona pandemic caused a real boom in the PC market. Numerous consumers stocked up on new computers or notebooks, partly as a result of expanded home office regulations. However, market researchers predict that there will be a sharp decline of almost 10 percent for the PC market in 2022.

PC market 2022: boom comes to an end

During the Corona pandemic and the accompanying home-office push, demand for PCs and notebooks rose rapidly in recent years. The boom will come to an end this year, however, according to an analysis by market research firm Gartner.

According to Ranjit Atwal of Gartner, a combination of high inflation, currency fluctuations and persistent supply bottlenecks, among other factors, will cause the PC market to decline in 2022. For the current year, the analysts are predicting a 9.5 percent decline.

In 2021, demand for PCs and notebooks was up eleven percent year-on-year, equivalent to around 342 million units. At the end of 2022, sales of just under 310 million desktop PCs and notebooks are expected.

The decline is expected to be particularly noticeable in the consumer segment. Here, Gartner forecasts a decline of around 13 percent, while just under 7.2 percent is expected in the enterprise segment, as reported by t3n.

The German games market had also seen strong growth in 2021, according to analysis by industry association Game based on data from market research companies GfK and data.ai. Among them, sales of gaming hardware:

Gaming-ready desktop PCs and notebooks generated a sales plus of around 10 percent in 2021, according to the analysis (969 million euros compared with 882 million euros in 2020). On the other hand, sales of stationary consoles rose by as much as 23 percent in 2021. Here, too, there is likely to be a sharp decline in 2022.

Smartphone boom with lower forecast

So while the PC market is set to go downhill in 2022, Gartner is predicting significant growth this year in the smartphone segment of devices with fast 5G mobile technology in particular. There is talk of an increase of 29 percent to 710 million devices sold.

This sounds like a lot at first, but in the end it is also significantly lower than the forecast issued at the beginning of the year. Here, a growth of 47 percent was assumed.

It remains to be seen whether this forecast will ultimately come true. After all, we can still expect some exciting devices on the smartphone market in 2022 in the second half of the year. From the Nothing Phone (1) to the first smartphone with a 1-inch sensor from Xiaomi to the Google Pixel 7 (Pro) and the iPhone 14 generation.