In the first quarter of 2020, 37.9 million notebooks were shipped worldwide, down 2 percent year-over-year, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics.
Among them, Lenovo's shipments rose 1% year-on-year, with a share of 23.5% ranking first in the world.
As global consumer demand slumps in the second quarter, the notebook market will be even more challenging and leading notebook manufacturers will be in a precarious position.
Chirag Upadhyay, Senior Research Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said notebook vendors with a heavy reliance on China for its supply chain and those which did not have high levels of inventory before the Covid-19 outbreak had most difficulty in Q1 on a global basis.
From a consumer demand standpoint, the vendors which are most reliant on the Chinese domestic market experienced the biggest downturns, he said.
All of that aside, the notebook market only shrank -2% year-on-year. And compared to most other consumer electronics segments, this should be considered a success in a very tough environment.
Eric Smith, Director of Connected Computing of Strategy Analytics said, “We expect that as Covid-19 spreads globally in Q2, large corporations and educational institutions will place more orders for notebooks to support work/learn-from-home initiatives around the world.”
He said that more families are stuck in their homes during quarantine orders. So, there are too few productivity devices for all members of a household to get their work done. Consumer demand will be soft as average people face economic hardship. But commercial demand could balance out that softness.
