According to preliminary data from Counterpoint, the global PC market showed signs of recovery in the second quarter of 2024, with shipments increasing by 3.1% year-over-year to reach 62.5 million units. This growth will be driven primarily by the replacement cycle and a low base period, indicating a sustained recovery momentum in the market. AI PC has become the hottest topic in the PC industry, and it is expected that the AI PC boom will arrive in the second half of 2024.
Apple is looking forward to the release of a new MacBook equipped with the M4 chip to boost its shipment growth. Meanwhile, AI-based notebooks on the ARM architecture are expected to be a significant driving force in the ARM PC market, capturing over 25% of the market share by 2027.
Lenovo continues to lead the global PC market with a 23.6% market share and a 4% year-over-year shipment growth. HP and Dell have stabilized their performance after North American orders returned to their original levels. HP holds a 21% market share, Dell a 16%, and Apple maintains a stable 8.5% market share.
With the surge of Windows on Arm-based AI devices at the end of the second quarter of 2024, AI notebooks are expected to drive the expansion of the AI PC market in the second half of the year. Devices based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon solutions outperform x86 architectures in terms of power consumption, and MediaTek's collaboration with NVIDIA on next-generation ARM-based AI notebooks will further drive market growth.
Analysts predict that although the price of AI PCs is high, enterprise (commercial) demand will lead the mainstream consumer market. However, as more AI use cases and solutions are developed and adopted on PCs, the adoption rate of AI PCs will accelerate. Overall, PC shipments are expected to increase by about 3% in 2024.