PC Market Warms Up in Q2 Ahead of AI PC Boom in H2

Global PC shipments grew 3.1% YoY in 2Q24 to reach 62.5 million PC device units, according to Counterpoint Research's preliminary data. This is the market’s second consecutive quarterly growth in shipments.

The growth, driven by a moderate replacement cycle and off-easy comp, highlights the global PC market’s continued recovery momentum in 2024. AI PCs remain the most popular topic in the PC industry. Laptops with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X platform have begun to trigger the first wave of the AI laptop boom. The upcoming AMD Ryzen AI 300 and Intel Lunar Lake in the second half of 3Q24 will further drive the popularity of AI PCs.

Despite a lull in demand in China, Lenovo remained the leader among PC vendors, leaving the June quarter with a 23.6% market share and ~4% shipment growth. HP and Dell were relatively flat in the quarter, supported by order recovery in North America. HP had a 21% market share in 2Q24, while Dell had 16%. Apple remained quiet in the latest quarter with an 8.5% market share. The company is waiting for the launch of the next-generation M4-based MacBook to regain shipment momentum in late 2024. Overall, 2Q24 brand rankings and shares were largely unchanged.

AI laptops will expand the AI PC market in H2, driven especially by surging Windows on Arm AI devices at the end of Q2. These Qualcomm Snapdragon-based solutions feature better battery efficiency than the dominating x86 camp. MediaTek and NVIDIA’s partnership on next-generation Arm-based AI laptop solutions will also be another driver to Arm PC's market share expansion in 2025-2026 at the expense of x86 vendors. Counterpoint Research projects Arm PCs to capture more than 25% market share in 2027.

“H2 will be the battlefield for AI PCs. Vendors are paving the way for the proliferation and the rise of a brand-new technology generation. However, due to the higher selling price of AI PCs, we believe enterprise (commercial) demand will run ahead of the mainstream consumer sector, although we may not see the most rapid adoption path in the first year of AI PCs. As more AI use cases and solutions are developed and applied to PCs, we will see the deployment accelerate in the future. Benefitting from AI PC demand and the replacement cycle after COVID-19, we reiterate our view of ~3% PC shipment growth in 2024,” said William Li, Senior Analyst at Counterpoint Research.