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The global PC shipments declined 7.6 per cent (year-over-year) in the third quarter this year with 68.2 million PCs shipped, according to an IDC report, as the downward spiral for PC shipments continues.

Lenovo with 23.5 per cent was at the top position in Q3, followed by HP Inc with 19.8 per cent market share and Dell with 15 per cent share.

Though demand and the global economy remain subdued, PC shipments have increased in each of the last two quarters, slowing the rate of annual decline and indicating that the market has moved past the bottom of the trough, the report mentioned.

While most of the top five vendors experienced double-digit declines during the quarter, Apple's outsized decline was the result of unfavorable year-over-year comparisons as the company recovered from a Covid-related halt in production during the third quarter last year. 

Meanwhile, HP's growth was largely due to the normalising of inventory, said the report.

"The PC industry is on a slow path to recovery as a device refresh cycle and end of support for Windows 10 will help drive sales in the second half of 2024 and beyond. In the meantime, the PC industry will unfortunately experience more pain," said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager for IDC's Mobility and Consumer Device Trackers. 

The slowness in the industry is giving the supply chain an opportunity to explore procurement and production options outside China and this will likely remain a key issue going forward, second only to the advancement of AI within PCs, he added.

Generative AI could be a watershed moment for the PC industry.

“AI PCs promise organisations the ability to personalize the user experience at a deeper level all while being able to preserve data privacy and sovereignty. As more of these devices launch next year, we expect a significant boost to overall selling prices,” said Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices & Displays at IDC.