According to TrendForce, Economic Headwinds Intensify, Inventories Expect Depletion, Global Laptop Shipments Forecast at Just 176 Million Units in 2023

Global laptop shipments in 4Q 2022 are likely to decline to 42.9 million units, down 7.2% QoQ and 32.3% YoY, down from the same period before the pandemic. Demand is affected by negative factors such as inventory, the war in Ukraine and rising inflation, leading to a downward revision of laptop market shipments in 2022 to 189 million units, a 23% year-on-year decline.

TrendForce believes that after inventory pressure gradually returns to a healthy level, Chromebooks may be the first wave of recovery products by 2Q 2023. Traditional cyclical growth momentum is expected to return with shipments set to recover slightly, from 14.44 million in 2022 to 16.2 million.

The pressure will continue in the commercial and consumer laptop market. Business demand faces increases in the dollar rate leading to higher corporate borrowing rates and post-pandemic scenarios including capital expenditure tightening, workforce reductions and layoffs, which will cause an even bigger decline than that of consumer laptops.

Although the pandemic-induced demand gradually weakened, hampering the growth of the high-end laptop market in 2022, TrendForce observed that gaming and creator laptops will continue to be cash cows. Major laptop manufacturers and processor brands such as Intel and Nvidia are racing to expand, enhancing the user experience with high specifications and stimulating potential demand to become a laptop category capable of continued future growth.

Inflationary pressure and geopolitics remain variable in the overall environment and consumer electronics bore the brunt of this uncertainty. With China continuing to adopt a tough Zero COVID policy and confrontation with the United States, supply chain strategies are under scrutiny by major manufacturers.

As the global economy stays the course through headwinds, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that the 2023 economic growth rate will be about 2.7%, 0.5 percentage points lower than in 2022, which will be the most severe economic winter in 20 years.

Overall, TrendForce estimates that there are no signs of an obvious recovery in the global laptop market in 2023. Although the annual decline in shipments has slowed to 6.9%, it will only reach 176 million units.