The Zhitong Finance App learned that Canalys published an article stating that the personal computer (PC) (including desktops, notebooks and workstations) market in mainland China is expected to shrink by 1% in 2024. Although the global market has resumed growth, mainland China's shipments fell 12% in the first quarter. Benefiting from the commercial sector, particularly procurement demand from large state-owned enterprises and local government departments, desktop shipments are expected to perform well in 2024, with an annual growth rate of 10%. In the short term, consumers and private companies remain cautious about spending on PCs, etc., and laptop shipments are expected to drop 5% throughout the year.

The recovery trajectory of the Chinese PC market is not in line with global trends. In the first quarter of 2024, IT spending by leading companies was weak, leading companies were sluggish, and the commercial market experienced a sharp decline of 19%. The decline in consumer market shipments was moderate, at only 8%. Despite the mediocre performance of the PC market in 2024, due to the continued development of nationalized procurement, market performance is expected to be stronger in 2025, and PC shipments are expected to increase by 12%.

The Xinchuang industry, that is, the IT application innovation industry, is committed to building a localized ecosystem including IT components, software, and hardware. Canalys analyst Emma Xu (Emma Xu) pointed out, “After several years of development, the Xinchuang industry has developed relatively more mature, gradually forming clear procurement standards and rules, and the ecology surrounding the industrial value chain is more stable, especially in the field of chips and software. Currently, Xinchuang's procurement is gradually penetrating into lower-level local government departments, and continues to expand further into the financial, telecommunications, energy, healthcare, and education industries. AI will be an important indicator in future hardware and software replacements. Therefore, in terms of products and services, industry stakeholders such as OEMs, chipmakers, software developers, and infrastructure providers must keep up with this emerging trend to remain competitive.”

AI not only drives the development of the PC market, but has also become an important catalyst for the tablet market. Although notebook and desktop shipments fell 13% and 11%, respectively, in the first quarter, the tablet market grew 22%. This is due to the growing demand for learning tablets and the importance that local smartphone makers place on building a multi-device ecosystem strategy. Huawei continues to update its tablet portfolio, introducing the low-end products of the MatePad SE series and the high-end MatePad Pro series. Other manufacturers are successively launching new devices and AI applications to improve efficiency (such as recording, translation, and note-taking apps) to empower tablets. The education market is also a hotbed of competition and innovation. Vendors such as iFLYTEK and Learn&Think are all committed to developing AI learning models and reaching out to the university community through their tablets.

Xu Ying continued: “Competition is becoming increasingly fierce, and hardware and software innovation is particularly important. But more importantly, manufacturers should have sufficient capacity to take advantage of these innovations and integrate them into their device ecosystem to provide a more engaging experience and benefit users. There are many opportunities in the Chinese market, and the government's attitude towards AI innovation is also very positive. PC and tablet manufacturers should make full use of these opportunities and favorable policies.”