Global PC shipments rise 9.3% in Q4 and 9.1% in 2025 on higher demand, Windows 11 upgrade: Gartner

PC shipments globally increased 9.3% on year to 71.5 million units in the October-December quarter, according to preliminary data by US-based business and technology research firm Gartner. For the quarter ended December 31, 2024, PC shipments stood at 65.4 million units. For the calendar year 2025, worldwide PC shipments totaled over 270.22 million units, a growth of 9.1% from 2024.

“The personal computer market maintained healthy growth in the fourth quarter of 2025, largely driven by robust consumer demand and business demand fueled by the Windows 11 upgrade cycle,” said Rishi Padhi, Research Principal, Gartner in a release. “Demand softened by the end of the quarter as price pressure and promotions offset earlier price increases on high-end GPUs and AI PCs, resulting in stable or slightly lower average selling prices,” he added.

The following table shows the preliminary data on total shipments and market share for the top six vendors globally in the fourth quarter of 2025. 

Table 1: Preliminary worldwide PC vendor shipment estimates for Q425 (in thousands of units)

Note: Data includes desktop and laptop PCs that are equipped with Windows, macOS and Chrome OS. All data is estimated based on a preliminary study. Final estimates will be subject to change. The statistics are based on shipments selling into channels. Source: Gartner 

As per the data, Lenovo shipped the largest number of PCs at 19.44 million units, followed by HP and Dell with 15.39 million and 11.78 million units, respectively. While Lenovo's market share increased to 27.2%, HP and Dell also recorded higher market shares at 21.5% and 16.5%, respectively. Apple, the maker of Mac PCs and iPhones, recorded 6.69 million units during the quarter ended December 31. It had shipped nearly 6.33 million PCs in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

Tariffs, memory hikes drive 2025 shipments

The PC market rebounded in 2025, recording 9.1% growth over 2024, with more than 270 million units shipped (table 2). This is a significant turnaround following two years of steep decline in 2022 and 2023, and marginal gains in 2024.

Table 2: Preliminary worldwide PC vendor shipment estimates for 2025 (in thousands of units)

Padhi attributed the growth in shipments during 2025 to tariff hikes, anticipated increase in memory prices in 2026, and rising costs associated with Windows 10 extended security updates that prompted businesses to prioritize replacing hardware. 

“Another factor for growth in 2025 was vendors focused heavily on promoting AI PCs to capture replacement demand. However, most AI PC features, such as local inference, have yet to deliver significant productivity gains compared to cloud-based AI solutions. As a result, many organizations are upgrading primarily to future-proof their fleets, rather than to realize immediate business value from AI capabilities,” he said.

Hong Kong-based Chinese PC maker Lenovo shipped the highest number of PCs globally at 73.5 million units during the previous year, a 17.6% on year growth compared to 62.5 million units in 2024. While HP ranked second with 8.3% rise in shipments at 57.4 million units, US-headquartered Dell came in third with nearly 41.4 million units shipped worldwide. 

Apple's shipments during the year grew 10.3% year-on-year to 24.8 million units, compared to 22.5 million units as of December 31, 2024.  The company's market share declined marginally to 9.2% from 9.1% in 2024.