Sales of computers have risen as users across the world embrace the new way of remote working.

According to the latest figures from analyst house Canalys, combined shipments of laptops, desktops, and workstations increased 12.7% in the third quarter of 2020 compared to the previous year.

Overall, 79.2 million units were shipped worldwide in the quarter, with the PC market benefitting hugely from the move towards working from home as businesses and employees alike look to get their hands on the latest devices.

PC sales

Lenovo once again took top spot in the PC market thanks to annual growth of 11.4%, shipping over 19.2 million shipments to take a 24.3% overall share. HP secured second place thanks to its 11.9% growth rate, shipping 18.7 million units shipped.

Dell took third with 15.1% of the market, despite seeing a decline of 0.5% in shipments from a year ago, with Apple and Acer rounding out the top five, recording positive growth of 13.2% and 15.0% respectively.

“The lasting effects of this pandemic on the way people work, learn and collaborate will create significant opportunities for PC vendors in the coming years,” said Rushabh Doshi, Canalys Research Director.

“As the line between work and home lives is increasingly blurred, it becomes important to position devices towards a wide array of use cases, with a focus on mobility, connectivity, battery life, and display and audio quality. Differentiation in product portfolios to capture key segments such as education and mainstream gaming will also provide pockets of growth.”

“And beyond the PC itself, there will be an increased need for collaboration accessories, new services, subscription packages and a strong focus on endpoint security. These trends will most benefit vendors who provide holistic solutions that enable their customers to make structural changes to their operations. Although the focus has been on commercial PC demand in the last two quarters, consumer spending during the holiday season is set to bring more joy to the PC market.”

Canalys noted how Governments and education could be key growth sectors going forward as countries around the world look to adapt in the pandemic age, with the UK government highlighted after it gave 100,000 notebooks to students to ensure minimum disruption.

Source: techradar.com