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PC and Tablet Shipments Expected to Fall Through 2023, IDC Forecasts

Inflation and a recent surge in purchases are driving down demand, the report says.

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Andrew Blok has been an editor at CNET covering HVAC and home energy, with a focus on solar, since October 2021. As an environmental journalist, he navigates the changing energy landscape to help people make smart energy decisions. He's a graduate of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State and has written for several publications in the Great Lakes region, including Great Lakes Now and Environmental Health News, since 2019. You can find him in western Michigan watching birds.
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Shipments of PCs and tablets will decline in 2022, and again in 2023, before starting to grow again, market researcher IDC said in a forecast released Thursday. IDC expects PC shipments to decline 12.8% and tablet shipments to decline 6.8% this year. It expects a decline of another 2.6% in 2023 across the two categories before shipments begin to increase again in 2024.

"Inflation, a weakening global economy, and the surge in buying over the past two years are the leading causes for the reduced outlook," according to IDC's report.

Read more: Best Laptops of 2022

Shipments have been down this year already. In July, IDC reported that second quarter shipments of PCs were down 15.3% compared to the second quarter of 2021. In 2021, PC shipments reached their highest levels in 10 years. Despite the decrease this year, shipments are still above pre-pandemic levels.

IDC counts desktop computers, notebooks and workstations as PCs.

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