This year, sales of computers, tablets and mobile phones are expected to fall by 4,4%, to a total of 1,7 billion units, according to Gartner forecasts, which found a drop in sales of the same set of devices, in 2022, 11,9%.
"The economic downturn will continue to dampen demand for devices through 2023. In fact, end-user spending on devices is forecast to decline by 5,1% in 2023“, admits Ranjit Atwal, senior analyst at Gartner. “Business confidence, which had started to recover in the aftermath of the pandemic, has now dropped significantly in most regions. We do not expect the easing of inflation and the peak of the recession to happen until the fourth quarter of 2023“, adds the same responsible. This downward trend will diminish over the course of the year, which could end with consumer and business spending rising, it is expected.
Leading the drop in sales are and will continue to be computers, in a segment that this year will lose 6,8%, after having dropped 2022% in unit sales in 16. As a result of this slowdown, Gartner believes that stores will give priority to optimizing stocks, a trend that will be particularly noticeable during the first half of the year, and which was already seen in 2022. From the second half of the year onwards, the situation tends to to normalize.
Longer equipment renewal cycles will continue to occur in 2023. In PCs, Gartner believes, however, that by the end of the year more than 25% of companies will migrate to Windows 11, even if this is not enough to maintain sales volumes at the levels seen between 2020 and 2022.
In lighter formats, such as tablets, the impact of the contraction will be smaller and it is estimated that sales this year will retreat only 2,9%, for a total of 132.963 units sold.
In mobile phones, the forecast drop in sales is 4%, in 2023, for a total of 1.230 million units, slightly below the 1.280 million units sold in 2022. The average expenditure per end user with mobile phones in 2023 should fall 3,8 .XNUMX%.
Here, too, the longer equipment renewal cycles – between six and nine months longer – and the fact that the stores are not absorbing the impact of inflation, reflecting it on consumer prices, will contribute to lower sales volumes, he believes. to Gartner.
IDC also had presented sales figures for mobile phones and computers in 2022 and left many reticences in relation to the market's ability to recover this year, as I predicted just a few months ago.
