Notebook and PC shipments grew 19% in 2021

A few days ago, we reported that smartphone shipment levels returned to pre-COVID levels in 2021, and today, we have information that the laptop market grew a massive 19% year-over-year. Lenovo is still leading the market, and Apple managed to sell a lot more Mac computers than in previous quarters.

Strategy Analytics reported its findings on how many devices were shipped in 2021, and in the last quarter of the year. The market managed to grow 19%, compared to 2020, and manufacturers shipped a total of 268 million devices that supported people over the difficult times, when most people were forced to work remotely and in hybrid work environments.

Source: Strategy Analytics

Lenovo remained the top manufacturer with 16.2 million shipped units, and 24% market share, but it declined by 9% compared to the previous year. HP is the second with 14.5 million units and 21% market share, followed by the quickly growing Dell with 13.2 million units and 19% market share. Apple is in the fourth position with 10% market share and 6.6 million shipped units. Apple managed to grow 11% in the last quarter, which is likely thanks to the impressive M1-series MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. This also marks an all-time high record for Apple, and it’s the first time it managed to ship so many units. Acer returned to the top 5 ranks by shipping 5.2 million devices, capturing 8% market share in the last quarter.

The growing laptop market likely explains why the Windows 11 adoption rate was high, but manufacturers still have supply and shortage issues due to the pandemic. Over the last year, the prices increased for several devices in different price segments, and some vendors were unable to ship as many units as they were projecting initially due to the shortages.