While delayed by roughly one year, likely due to the glut of inventory accumulation in the wake of the spike in special demand caused by the global pandemic, and subsequent extreme stress on global supply chains, resulting in double-booking orders, etc., earnings have started a full-fledged recovery against the backdrop of an unusual situation of low levels of distribution inventories across all end markets just as the silicon cycle enters an upturn.
This coincides with a full-fledged recovery in PC demand driven by the October Windows 10 end-of-service PC replacement, and rapid diffusion of AI PCs (equipped with dedicated AI accelerators designed to optimize and accelerate AI tasks on a device, providing improved performance and efficiency in handling AI and GenAI workloads without relying on external servers or cloud services).
Q1 2025 Gartner PC shipments were: worldwide +4.8% YoY, US +12.6% and Japan +15.6%.