PC users have increased ever since the pandemic began, with many people getting stuck at home due to quarantine rules. Demand for PCs is expected to stay high for the rest of 2021, though recent forecasts aren't as optimistic for the following years.
Digital Trends reports that according to numbers from the International Data Corporation, PC shipments worldwide are expected to keep growing throughout this year, before the numbers inadvertently drop once 2022 rolls in.
The IDC predicts a growth of 14.2% in PC devices and components shipments, which is roughly 347 million units this year. This figure, however, has decreased from May's prediction of an 18% growth, mainly due to the global semiconductor shortage that's been constrained supplies.
Aside from that, the IDC is also seeing an increase in the tablet market, though the shipments will be slower-paced at 3.4%. Ryan Reith of IDC says that they still believe the computer and tablet markets will continue experiencing high demand because of these supply constraints.
It's easy to see why the demand for PC and PC-based devices are expected to remain strong. Aside from gaming consoles, desktops, laptops, and tablets served as people's sole companions during the pandemic. They weren't able to see their loved ones in person and thus had to rely on video and chat messaging to catch up.
As for the projected 2022 drop in demand, however, maybe it's because the world has been able to handle the coronavirus pandemic at least well enough. More and more people are getting vaccinated, which could mean that experts see a return to normalcy by next year.
PC Demand In Focus
Perhaps there's no better way to illustrate just how much demand people have for computer systems than with the current situation of the graphics card market.
NVIDIA and AMD released their current-generation RTX 3000 and RX 6000 series GPUs during the height of the pandemic, which also coincided with a boom in cryptocurrency mining. The modern technologies in these new graphics cards proved to be a boon when it came to mining crypto, resulting in miners snagging a lot of stocks and driving the prices up.
But of course, crypto is just one side of the coin. In Taiwan (where several of the biggest semiconductor makers in the world are based), there was a massive drought that severely hampered silicon production. Water is a critical part of making electronics, and the severe lack of it basically put entire multi-billion-dollar factories on hold.
Lastly, with more people stuck at home, they were forced to adopt work-from-home schedules that required a computer.
As a result, these graphics cards and other related computer components were experiencing markups nearing the four-digit range. Products whose MSRPs were in the hundreds were now priced at several thousand dollars just because of the insane demand.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by RJ Pierce
