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PC Market Caught Fire in Q4. Well, in All of 2020

The PC market was on fire in the fourth quarter.

In its quarterly tracking of worldwide PC shipments, IDC reported preliminary numbers of 26.1 percent year-over-year growth to 91.6 million units.

And the fire could have been hotter.

"Every segment of the supply chain was stretched to its limits as production once again lagged behind demand during the quarter," said IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani in a statement Monday. "Not only were PC makers and ODMs dealing with component and production capacity shortages, but logistics remained an issue as vendors were forced to resort to air freight, upping costs at the expense of reducing delivery times."

Citing pandemic-related demand factors such as work-from-home, remote learning, gaming and monitors, IDC predicted the boom in PC sales has a ways to go.

For the full year, market growth was 13.1 percent. The research house said the last time PC growth was that strong was 2010, when the market grew by 13.7 percent.

Lenovo led all vendors in worldwide PC shipments for Q4, followed by HP Inc., Dell Technologies, Apple and Acer Group.

Posted by Scott Bekker on January 11, 2021


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