Usually demand and sales go hand in hand. However, our current situation is somewhat unusual. The PC market has seen a surge in demand – as a result of people being restricted to their home, having to study and work remotely. But because of lockdown measures, goods shipments have been negatively affected, dragging PC sales down.

There is both good and bad news for the PC market. The good news is that the PC market hasn't been hit as badly as the smartphone market – that experienced a 38% drop in sales during February of this year.  The bad news is the desktop, notebook and workstation market still decreased by 8% when comparing Q1 2020 with Q1 2019, according to research from Canalys.

Image credit: Canalys

Canalys' research also investigates individual computer companies and compares their sales figures over the same period of time. Two companies that stick out from the rest are Dell and Apple, with Dell doing comparatively better than its rivals while Apple is doing worse. Dell is reported to be the only major company that managed to show a growth from Q1 2019 to Q1 2020 – albeit 1.1% growth. Apple, on the other hand, saw -21% annual growth. This is in stark contrast to how well the company usually does in sales.

Ishan Dutt, analyst at Canalys, predicts that the surge in demand for Q1 will be short-lived. He says: “we expect to see a significant downturn in demand in Q2 2020”. Dutt also says that a global recession is on its way, that will influence both companies and peoples willingness to spend money – a trend that is speculated to continue for at least three to six months.

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KitGuru says: It's sad to see a downturn in global sales of PCs, but hardly surprising. Hopefully the ship can be turned around sooner, rather than later. When do you think the market will regain confidence again? How do you think this will affect the PC market as a whole?

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