Lenovo says it can’t keep up with PC demand

The worldwide demand for PCs continues to surprise vendors, with Lenovo revealing it can’t keep up and that its supplies are at roughly a third of what they usually are.

To some extent, this spike in demand could have been anticipated. Experts and market analysts have been warning for months now how the shift towards remote working will force both businesses and individuals, into refreshing their hardware.

However, the demand this strong seems to have caught Lenovo, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, off guard. Discussing the topic on a conference call with analysts, the company’s COO Gianfranco Lanci said: “I would say we have not seen any declining demand” since Q4 2020.

“I think when I look around the world… from US to Europe to China to Asia-Pacific, I think our channel inventory has never been so low and in some cases during the last quarter we were down to two to three weeks,“ The Register reported.

Supplies are at a “very, very” low level, Lanci confirmed, saying that the shipments in the last quarter could have been even better had the company no limitation on supply.

According to a recent report from market analysts Canalys, the global PC market grew by 25 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, with record 90.3 million devices sold.

Lenovo held on to the first place in the PC market for the quarter, recording 23.1 million units shipped, with 29 percent growth year-on-year. It was also the best-performing company for the year, with 72.6 million total units sold and a market share of 24.5 percent.

In October, Lenovo predicted the world would buy 300 million PCs in 2021, but as things stand now, this could very well be quite a conservative prediction.

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