A broad-based recovery in PC demand isn’t happening—yet.
For months, Wall Street analysts and industry executives have been hoping that new artificial intelligence features could spark a demand rebound for PCs this year. The latest data suggest it might take longer than anticipated.
On Wednesday,
HP Inc.
reported weak PC sales results for its fiscal first quarter ending in January. Revenue from the company’s Personal Systems segment, which sells PCs and other products, was $8.8 billion, down 4% from the prior year and below the Wall Street consensus of $9.28 billion.
HP CEO Enrique Lores said in an interview with Barron’s that the impact of AI PCs will be “small” in fiscal 2024, with a more material impact on results expected in 2025 and 2026.
On Thursday morning,
Best Buy
reported similarly weak numbers for its computer and mobile phone segment as part of its fiscal fourth earnings report. Domestic comparable same-store sales for the category fell by 4.2% versus the prior year.
The latest revenue developments also follow a mixed outlook from Intel. Last month, the world’s largest maker of computer processors provided a revenue forecast for the March quarter that was significantly below expectations. At the time, the chip maker provided a revenue forecast range of $12.2 billion to $13.2 billion, well below the consensus estimate of $14.2 billion.
The “PC recovery appears to be choppy as the 4Q softness continued into early 2024,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh wrote on Thursday.
Evidence is piling up that the turnaround in PC demand is not imminent.
Write to Tae Kim at [email protected]
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