Two analyst houses have revealed that global PC shipments have increased during the first quarter of 2025, despite the economic chaos unleashed by US President Donald Trump and his tariff policies.
For example IDC Research announced this week that “PC shipments during the first quarter of 2025 grew 4.9 percent from the prior year, with global volumes reaching 63.2 million shipments.”
Meanwhile Canalys (now part of Omdia) announced even stronger growth rate, saying “total shipments of desktops, notebooks and workstations grew 9.4 percent to 62.7 million units in Q1 2025.”
Trump’s tariffs
The stats from the two firms comes despite concern from both the business community and consumers about the impact of Trump’s latest tariff actions.
After many days of market turmoil, Trump announced on Wednesday that he authorising a universal “lowered reciprocal tariff of 10 percent” as negotiations continued.
But at the same time Trump increased tariffs on goods from China to 125 percent “effectively immediately”, after Beijing had retaliated imposing tariffs of 84 percent on US imports after Trump had ramped up import duty on Chinese goods to 104 percent.
After China’s retaliation, Trump has now raised China’s tariffs to 125 percent, but markets have surged with the news of Trump’s 90-day pause on the other tariffs.
PC shipments
Into this mix comes the news of increased shipments of PCs in the first quarter of 2025, likely influenced by tariffs concerns, coupled with the migration to Windows 11.
“The market is clearly showing some level of pull-in in the first quarter this year as both vendors and end-users brace for the impact of US tariffs,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research VP with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. “In a first quarter still relatively untouched by tariffs, the entire ecosystem attempted to accelerate the pace of deliveries to avoid the first round of US tariffs and expected volatility for the remainder of the year.”
“Evidently, commercial demand remained strong in the first quarter, but the new round of US tariffs announced on April 2nd could have a direct inflationary impact on the PC market that could result in delayed IT spending for the remainder of the year,” Bouchard added.
IDC noted that most of the underlying demand factors for PCs, such as the installed base upgrade ahead of Windows 10 end of support, and demand for on-device AI, remain strong.
However, the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs and associated inflationary pressure and global recessionary risks will negatively impact demand for PCs in the following quarters in 2025.
“While many are still unpacking the details from the April 2nd tariff announcement, it’s safe to say most are reevaluating what the following months will look like,” added Ryan Reith, group VP with IDC’s Worldwide Device Trackers.
“So far, our supply chain checks haven’t shown any drastic shifts, but this isn’t surprising as it’s almost too volatile to make drastic business decisions,” said Reith. “Companies are undoubtedly evaluating everything from inventory on hand, capacity to manufacture by location, possible reroute opportunities to lower import tariffs, and for some, their deal discussions with the US administration. When it comes to hardware like PCs and similar devices, we still maintain the view that most (if not all) price increases will get passed directly to the consumer.”
Ranking players
IDC ranked the market leaders as follows: Lenovo with 15.2 million Q1 shipments (24.1 percent market share); HP with 12.8 million Q1 shipments (20.2 percent market share); Dell with 9.6 million Q1 shipments (15.1 percent market share); Apple with 5.5 million Q1 shipments (8.7 percent market share); and ASUS with 4 million Q1 shipments (6.3 percent market share).
Canalys meanwhile cautioned that as the next round of higher tariffs on more countries goes into effect, both direct and indirect impacts threaten global PC market recovery and Windows 10 End of Support induced momentum for the remainder of the year.
“PC shipments experienced a surge in Q1 2025, driven by vendors accelerating deliveries to the US in anticipation of initial tariff announcements,” said Ishan Dutt, Principal Analyst at Canalys. Lenovo and HP grew shipments to the US in Q1 by around 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively.
“This preemptive strategy allowed manufacturers and the channel to stock up ahead of potential cost increases, boosting sell-in shipments despite otherwise stable end-user demand,” added Dutt. “Although similar steps are being taken regarding the broader tariffs set to kick in on 9 April 2025, subsequent quarters this year are likely to see a slowdown as inventory levels normalise and customers face higher prices.”