The notebook market is set to face a more than 20% decline in whole-year 2022 shipments with the second-quarter shipments starting to dive as post-pandemic market demand becomes relatively saturated on top of a series of black swan events including rising global inflation, the Russia-Ukraine war as well as aggressive interest rate hikes in mature markets and worse yet, lingering supply chain instabilities.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics, global tablet shipments amounted to 31.95 million units in second-quarter 2022, coming short of expectation, as the market fell under negative influences including low season effects and rising global inflation as well as China's COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, which mainly affected the supply side.
Taiwan's notebook shipments performed weaker than expected in the second quarter of 2022, slipping 17.1% sequentially and 24.2% on year to below 40 million units.
According to Digitimes Research's statistics, global tablet shipments amounted to 32 million units in first-quarter 2022 in line with expectation. The volume was the lowest since the COVID-19 outbreak started in first-quarter 2020 as the tablet market sustained pressure from the slow season and rising inflation while no longer enjoying pandemic-driven work-from-home (WFH) and online learning demand.
Taiwan's first-quarter 2022 notebook shipments performed weaker than expected, slipping over 20% sequentially and the lowest shipment level since the second quarter of 2020.
Global tablet shipments amounted to 37.13 million units in fourth-quarter 2021, up 5.4% from the prior quarter but down 20.2% from the prior year, as the tablet market continued to struggle with the IC shortage and the shipments came short of expectation in the traditional high season.
Taiwan's notebook shipments enjoyed better-than-expected growths in the fourth quarter of 2021, picking up over 10% sequentially, stronger than the 9% of the global average.
Global notebook shipments in the third quarter performed better than expected in July. The volumes rose 3.1% sequentially and reached more than 62 million units, the second highest level ever.
Global tablet shipments started to decline due to the component shortage. In 2022, with the component shortage easing, global tablet shipments are projected to increase 1.3% from the 2021 level.
Global notebook shipments are expected to come to 236 million units in 2021, once again setting a new record in history. However, the year-over-year growth will fall short of the prior year level but will still be in the two-digit range.
