Ryan Reith

The Pandemic Driven Resurgence of PCs and the Long Standing Impactions Moving Forward

From 2012 through 2018 the PC market experienced 7 continuous years of decline largely because the world had largely shifted to mobile device as the primary compute mechanism. In 2019 the industry saw a modest return to growth largely driven by companies transitioning their systems to newer Windows 10 machines before the end of Windows 7 support. Then in 2020 the pandemic hits and cripples the world in many ways unimaginable pre-pandemic. However, for the PC industry this was the beginning of a resurgence.

For the PC industry 2020 included challenges around logistics, supply chain, and overall just meeting demand. But the end result of 13% growth and almost 300 million PCs shipped. And the trend didn’t stop with 2020. IDC believes the PC market will grow another 18% in 2021 with volumes reaching 2010 levels which was a time when PCs were still going gangbusters. All segments – business, education, consumer, gaming – were part of this growth and all still have room to grow. IDC believe a fundamental shift has happened around the PC and the impact will be positive into the outer years of the forecast.

In this session we’ll go through some of the details of what has happened since early 2020 with regards to personal computers and tablets, including details around supply chain, form factor shifts, and current market situation. This talk will also get into some details about where IDC now see’s the PC market headed.

Ryan Reith is the Program Vice President for IDC's Mobile Device Tracker suite, which includes mobile phones, tablets, wearables, and most recently AR/VR. His teams research focuses on the quantitative aspects of the mobile device industry, including market sizing, forecasting, vendor market share analysis, and technology trends. His current responsibilities include engaging with mobile device OEMs, supply chain, distributors, and the financial industry to discuss market trends and forward looking analysis.

Mr. Reith has an extensive background in mobility that started with IDC's Mobile Phone research team back in 2005. For the 5 years following his start with IDC he worked as Senior Analyst for IDC’s Mobile Phone Tracker research program, focusing on market sizing and forecasting for the mobile phone market. In 2010 he left IDC to join Palm (now HP) where he managed Competitive Intelligence as well as contributing to the product planning and marketing process for its Smartphone Product Marketing team.

Overall Mr. Reith brings years of experience analyzing device market trends, forecasting future technologies, and vendor analysis to the industry. The research programs he manages provide global insight into market opportunities and technology landscapes. Mr. Reith earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems from Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts.