Today, laptops sell far more to the general public than desktops, who prefer them to traditional towers because of their portability and the fact that not everyone uses the high power of a tower. gaming. However, we are already in a crisis that affects sales of devices of all kinds. therefore the drop in laptop sales shouldn’t surprise us in the least. But what exactly happened?
Computers are designed to last for many years and we often change PCs, whether laptops or desktops, well before their useful life as a product. However, during a recession is when people decide to keep their computers on for an extra period. The results? A general collapse in sales, with disastrous consequences for the sector, such as mass layoffs.
AMD is running out of steam in laptops
Every computer requires a graphics chip to send information to its screen, whether it’s a desktop system or a laptop. It is the same integrated on the same chip as the processor or as a separate chip. Well, if we take into account the figures from Jon Peddie Research regarding the percentages of sales of this component in laptops, we can find a surprise in the figures for the third quarter of 2023.
Two readings can be drawn from this, the first of which is that Intel has further increased its market share in laptops, because a good part of the GPUs taken into account are those that go into their Intel Core processors. As this is a zero-sum game, this translates into reduced sales of AMD Ryzen for laptops. What’s more, year after year Lisa Su’s company sales down nearly 40% year over year. As for NVIDIA, it remains within its usual percentages.
30% less sales on laptops
However, the percentages are only part of all the information, since another of the points to be discussed is the reduction in the volume of sales of graphics cards and, consequently, of GPUs that occurred in the third quarter of 2022. . A decrease compared to last year of 25.1%. More specifically, itDesktop graphics cards are down 15.43% year over year, which is surprising since it should have increased due to the end of the mining bubble. Our findings? The recessionary situation as well as the large number of refurbished graphics cards that are usually not counted in these statistics.
As for the sale of laptops, the discount is greater, 30% in total. However, we must clarify that it is not about the reduction in sales of computers of this type. Since gaming laptops usually incorporate two GPUs, the integrated one and the dedicated one. In this case, the answer is the current economic situation. And we must not forget that the economic results of many large companies in the sector have been negative.
Massive layoffs at HP
Poor laptop sales have taken their toll on one of the world’s largest makers of business laptops and one of the world’s oldest computer companies. And it is that they have announced that there will be layoffs over the next three years of more than 6000 people. One more consequence of the times we are facing, where the sale of computers is down and represents a major crisis in the sector that, unfortunately, the workers will end up paying for.
