In the fourth quarter of 2024, global notebook shipments (excluding detachable models) performed better than expected, decreasing by 1% compared to the previous quarter. In anticipation of tariffs on notebooks imported into the US by the Trump administration, brands and channel retailers increased their inventories in the fourth quarter to prepare.
Meanwhile, the enterprise sector also did not show significant replacement demand. The fourth quarter was traditionally the off-season for the education market. Although demand from Japan's NEXT GIGA project generated a small scale of shipments in the quarter, their influence on overall education model shipments remained limited.
Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2025, since brands had already pulled in their orders early in the previous quarter, they are now adopting a more conservative strategy while waiting for Trump's policies to unfold further. The consumer sector is expected to see a notable drop in orders, but stronger replacement demand in the enterprise and education sectors in the first quarter of 2025, compared to the previous quarter, will help offset some of the decline in the consumer sector. As a result, global notebook shipments are projected to decline by 7.9% in the first quarter.
Chart 1: Key factors affecting 1Q25 global notebook shipments: Supply
Chart 2: Key factors affecting 1Q25 global notebook shipments: Demand
Chart 3: Key factors affecting 1Q25 global notebook shipments: Brands
Chart 8: Global shipments by major vendor, 4Q23-1Q25 (k units)
Chart 17: Taiwan and Global notebook shipments, 2020-2024 (k units)
Chart 19: Global shipments by major vendor, 2021-2024 (k units)
