Slow Start for AI PCs As Overall Market Stumbles in Q3

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The tech industry has been talking up the AI PC as the future of computing. But the marketing hype wasn’t enough to lift the PC market in Q3.

Research firm IDC reports that PC shipments decreased by 2.4% year-over-year from July to September, for only 68.8 million units. That’s surprising, considering many analysts expected the PC market to be on the rebound following a post-pandemic slump.

Rival research firm Gartner also estimates that PC shipments fell in Q3 by 1.3% year-over-year. These initial results may raise doubts about AI PC marketing capturing consumer interest.

"Even with a full lineup of Windows-based AI PCs for both Arm and x86 in the third quarter of 2024, AI PCs did not boost the demand for PCs since buyers have yet to see their clear benefits or business value,” says Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa.

Meanwhile, IDC points to rising costs and a surge in PC volumes in Q2, which led to shipments falling, especially for Apple.

That said, PC shipments saw significant US growth during Q3, increasing by 5.6% year-over-year, according to Gartner. The research firm attributed the steady uptick to “continued stable macroeconomic conditions,” along with healthy demand from the US public sector and back-to-school sales.

Both Gartner and IDC also expect PC growth to resume globally throughout the year and into 2025, partly because Windows 10 officially loses support on Oct. 14, 2025.

New AI-focused PCs, including those from Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD, along with Apple’s M4-based Macs, will help drive the “premium segment” for PCs in the coming months, IDC adds. Still, the research firm expects mass market adoption of AI PCs to potentially take longer than expected and into 2026.

"The next year-and-change will be largely about developing software, use cases, and target audiences for this AI-enabled hardware,” says IDC analyst Linn Huang.