Apple shipped 40% fewer personal computers in Q1 2023 than in the same period last year, according to reports from market-research firms IDC and Canalys. Shipments from the large Windows systems companies were also down, with Dell down 31% and Lenovo, Asus, and HP also declining.

A Reuters report said the latest data “suggests that PC makers are set for another quarter of weak earnings after a 2022 that saw their sales squeezed by the end of the pandemic-driven demand boom.”

A potential silver lining in this cloud is a relieving of pressure on supply chains that have been beleaguered since the post-pandemic era snapped the developed world's economies back more quickly than anticipated.

This news comes a few months after another market-research company, Gartner, cut its overall enterprise IT growth forecast in half, from an original level of 5.1% to 2.4% – representing a total worldwide spend of $4.5 trillion, including $1.4 trillion on telco and $685 billion on a systems category that includes personal computers. About half of personal computers are sold into enterprise IT.

Meanwhile, data creation continues at its recent, years-long pace of 25% annual growth, thus doubling every three years. The Reuters report on personal computers quoted an analyst who said the latest numbers do not represent an out-and-out crash (similar to the 2001 dot-com meltdown or the Great Recession of 2008-09).

Overall world economic growth appears to remain sluggish yet slightly positive, forecast to be 3.6% for 2023 worldwide (a minimum of 2% is needed to keep the economy from being considered recessionary), according to the latest projections from the International Monetary Fund.