Image Credits:<\/strong> Canalys<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The culprits? For starters, a lot of people purchased new systems in 2020 and 2021 as their work settings adapted to a global pandemic. Laptops tend to have a life span of around three to five years. Desktops are even longer, at three to eight. People are likely to be content with their systems for a few years at least.<\/p>\n

Assuming there\u2019s a ceiling on PC sales, it\u2019s simply not possible for the industry to maintain constant growth. You can, naturally, add ongoing economic troubles to the list. When things look bad, people tend to hold off on purchasing big-ticket items. Laptops (a category that excludes tablets) were the worst hit, marking a 34% Y-o-Y drop, per Canalys. Desktops suffered too \u2014 but fared slightly better, with a 28% decline.<\/p>\n

As vendors go, both IDC and Canalys have Apple suffering the largest drop, at 40.5 and 45.5%, respectively. That\u2019s a staggering figure, likely owing \u2014 at least in part \u2014 to the company coming back down to earth, as the M1 chip managed to buck larger category trends in 2021\/2022. That chip marked Apple\u2019s biggest PC computing update since the company shifted to Intel decades prior. In spite of what ad copy might suggest, you don\u2019t get a generational shift every year.<\/p>\n