Counterpoint Research: Driven by the year-end holiday season and Chinese subsidy policies, global PC shipments in Q4 2024 increased by 3.7% year-over-year.

According to preliminary data from Counterpoint, driven by the year-end holiday season and China's subsidy policy, global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2024 grew by 3.7% year-on-year. In addition, due to continuous IT system upgrades by enterprises, there has been a steady stream of PC orders from the enterprise sector before Windows 10 support ends in October 2025. In 2024, PC manufacturers shipped a total of 253 million PCs, an increase of 2.6% from 2023, thanks to Windows 10's imminent end of support and the launch of the first batch of AIPC in the second half of 2024. Counterpoint believes that the PC market has returned to normal seasonal fluctuations and entered a new stage after the launch of AIPC in 2024. Comparison of global PC shipments between 2024 and 2023 (unit: million units) Data source: Counterpoint Research In 2024, PC brands introduced multiple AI PC solutions, including models based on Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite series, AMD's Strix Point, and Intel's Lunar Lake series. Lenovo, Asus, and Acer performed better than the market average. HP saw steady growth, Apple achieved moderate growth by launching a new MacBook Pro at the end of the year after a weak performance in the first half. Dell had a difficult year with almost no activity in the enterprise sector. Counterpoint predicts that 2025 will be a good year for PC brands as Windows 10 support ends and the number of AI PC models increases, with orders from the commercial market expected to grow. Counterpoint Senior Analyst William Li stated, "Overall, the market share of PC manufacturers remained largely unchanged in 2024. However, competition among chip manufacturers in the AI PC field is intensifying. Qualcomm has entered the market, AMD's influence is growing, Intel's market share is declining, and new manufacturers may launch solutions based on the Arm architecture later this year. The GenAI PC capabilities driven by Microsoft and chip manufacturers are expected to inject new vitality into the PC market." It is reported that AI-powered high-end notebook PCs mainly refer to Microsoft CoPilot+ laptops with powerful NPU and AI-capable notebook PCs powered by NVIDIA RTX 3000/4000 series GPUs, which can efficiently run GenAI applications on the device. In their first year of release, they captured 27% of the global notebook PC market. In 2025, AI notebook PCs are expected to account for nearly 60% of the total notebook PC market. By default, notebook PCs priced above $1000 will have device-side GenAI capabilities, and this capability will also be popularized in mid-range PCs in terms of hardware and support, driving the growth of such notebook PCs' shipments in 2025. This year, the AI ecosystem at the software and application level will continue to mature as intelligent agent AI is increasingly promoted.