The Asia-Pacific (APAC) PC market dipped 2.2 percent year-over-year in Q2, according to Gartner. This lesser decline compared to the past few quarters could be attributed to the weak China market, which offset the growth in the rest of Asia-Pacific.
Emerging Asia/Pacific experienced mid-single-digit growth, thanks to healthy growth in India. Mature Asia Pacific also saw improving PC demand, resulting in year-over-year growth for the first time in two years.
Overall, worldwide PC shipments amounted to 60.6 million units for a 1.9 percent increase in Q2.
“The low year-on-year growth, together with stabilised sequential growth, indicates that the market is on the right track to recovery. With 7.8 percent sequential growth between Q1 and Q2, PC inventory is tracking back to an average level. We continue to see no major supply chain issues, allowing for the market to be perfectly set up for continued growth with major platform updates on the horizon,” said Mikako Kitagawa, Director Analyst of Gartner.
Rise of AI PC
Since the start of 2024, the PC industry has been heavily promoting the AI PC which comes with a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The AI PC took centre stage at the recent Computex in Taipei where various PC makers announced their offerings.
At the end of Q2, the first Arm-based Windows AI PC was introduced. This is expected to intensify competition in the PC market, potentially opening up more opportunities for Arm processors on Windows devices.
“Despite these market efforts, the demand for AI PCs has been slow, as the product is still in the early introduction stage, and the real benefits of owning such a device are not yet clear to most buyers,” said Kitagawa.
Entelechy Asia 