PC 2Q25: 6-7% unit growth YoY is pretty good. 2025 looks like a 5-6% growth year, better than I thought (2%)
Demand driven by Enterprise, positive to ASP and margins
Consumer demand remains slow but Enterprises are upgrading to Windows 11. Low risk of tariff distortion: 1Q was too high in the US but 2Q has slowed down. On the component side, a risk of DRAM buildup.
2Q25 highest YoY growth: Apple (22%), Asus (17%), Lenovo (16%). Others are flat. Enterprise growth also implies higher ASP and margins for PC and CPU vendors.
On the CPU side, AMD share gains have slowed in PC, accelerated in Server. Given their roadmap, AMD should keep gaining slowly, Intel defending with difficulty.
Lenovo remains the market leader, and is out-growing #2 HP and #3 Dell.
Within smaller vendors, strong performance of Apple and Asus.
IDC comments
We expected the US market to cool down this quarter given the inventory buildup to begin the year
Despite a flat US PC market, the rest of the world demonstrated an appetite for PCs, fueled by an aging installed base and by a steady transition to Windows 11
Canalys comments
Notebook shipments up 7% YoY to 53.9m
Desktops shipments up 9% YoY to 13.7m.
Q2 volumes were driven by commercial PC deployments ahead of the Windows 10 end of support.
Consumer demand was weaker.
Decent 2H25 outlook
“A June poll of channel partners found over half expect their PC business to grow year on year in the second half of 2025, with 29% anticipating growth of over 10%”
Canalys interesting comments on the US import tariff conundrum
US imports of PCs have dramatically shifted away from China toward Vietnam as manufacturers seek to avoid potential tariffs.
The recent US-Vietnam trade deal establishes a 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods and a 40% tariff on transshipped items.
“What began as straightforward China avoidance has evolved into a complex regulatory maze. The key question is whether PCs manufactured in Vietnam using Chinese components or through Chinese-controlled operations will be classified as transshipments and face the 40% tariff”
PC data
Here are the quarterly shipment (millions) of PC by quarter and YoY. Post the Covid boom (2021-22) and bust (2023) cycle, 2024 growth reset to zero and we now see a clear acceleration of growth to 5-7%.
I was skeptical of a Windows 11 upgrade cycle, as the previous Windows end-of-life had a very modest effect on demand for Enterprise. It looks a bit better with Win 11. Maybe that reflects migrations to Cloud and usage of CoPilot.
After a tepid 2024 at 1% unit growth YoY, I was thinking that given the poor macro (inflation for consumers, tariff and policy for Enterprise) growth would remain low in 2025 at 2%. It’s better than that at 5-6%. The only reasons that I can envision are 1) better Cloud integration, including security and 2) AI integration.
At 5% in 2025, annual volumes look like this:
On the CPU side, AMD share gains have slowed in PC, accelerated in Server. Given their roadmap, AMD should keep gaining slowly, Intel defending with difficulty.
