Shipments edged up 1.8 percent to 68.9 million units in calendar Q4, with Lenovo, up 4.8 percent, outpacing the average to consolidate market share and account for almost one in every four computers bought by distributors globally.
Government subsidies in China helped to boost consumer sales locally, and end-of-year promotions tempted shoppers in Europe and the US too. Businesses continued to gradually sign off on hardware upgrades before Windows 10 support ends in October 2025, albeit not at the rate vendors expected.
This was a better finish to the year for the PC industry, which grew by just 1 percent over the 12 months to 262.7 million units.
Considering the massive hype around AI generally (which began before 2024) and AI PCs specifically, this is a rather modest level of YoY shipment growth. And key drivers identified by IDC were rather run of the mill; government subsidies in China, end of year holiday spending in Europe and the US.
Also fascinating to see Windows 10 support ending in 2025 not having a bigger impact. I have feeling governments will force Microsoft to extend public (free) security updates for at least another year if not more. I am definitely not switching to Windows 11.