Global Consumer Electronics: PC and Smartphone Shipments, 2024-2026

PCs and smartphones are the two largest consumer device categories tracked by public analyst press releases. This report uses Gartner and IDC releases to show recent shipment volumes and the 2026 impact of a memory chip shortage.

The smartphone market grew in 2024 but has turned down in 2026. IDC reported 6.4% growth in worldwide smartphone shipments in 2024 [2]. By Q2 2026 shipments were falling, with IDC citing memory costs up nearly 300% from a year earlier [2].

Gartner reports worldwide PC shipments of 245.3 million units in 2024, a 1.3% increase from 2023 [1]. The same release gives 242.3 million units for 2023, which Gartner calls the weakest year in the last 10 years of PC history [1]. Q4 2024 shipments were 64.4 million units, up 1.4%, the fifth consecutive quarter of growth [1].

IDC reports that PC shipments grew 3% year on year to 65.6 million units in Q1 2026 [4]. Including tablets, IDC's personal computing device market reached 103.3 million units, up 2.8% [4]. IDC attributes the Q1 result largely to demand pulled forward ahead of memory-driven price rises [4].

IDC reported 285.4 million smartphone shipments in Q2 2024, up 6.5% year on year [3]. In Q2 2026 shipments were 276.3 million units, down 7.4% from 298.3 million in Q2 2025 [2]. It was the second straight quarter of year-on-year decline [2].

IDC says memory now accounts for over 65% of the bill of materials for low-end phones [2]. The sub-USD 100 segment fell almost 60% year on year in Q2 2026 [2].

Samsung shipped 62.7 million smartphones in Q2 2026 (22.7% share, up 8.1%) and Apple 55.7 million (20.2% share, up 14.9%) [2]. They were the only top-five vendors to grow [2]. Xiaomi fell 26.4% to 31.2 million, OPPO 17.1% to 28.9 million and vivo 19.6% to 21.2 million [2]. Outside the top five, IDC reports Huawei grew 19.9% [2].

IDC forecasts worldwide smartphone shipments to fall 16.7% in 2026 to just over 1 billion units, which it calls the steepest annual contraction the industry has recorded [2]. It expects the average selling price to rise 27.6% to USD 581 and total market value to grow 6.3% to USD 613 billion [2]. Foldables are forecast to grow 12.6% [2]. These are forecasts, not actual results.

PC data for 2023-2024 are from Gartner's preliminary Q4 2024 release [1]; that release gives both 245.3 million and 245.4 million for 2024, and this report uses the headline figure. Smartphone and Q1 2026 PC data are from IDC press releases and IDC's public market insights pages [2][3][4]. Shipments are sell-in to channels or end users, in millions of units. IDC and Gartner use different definitions, so their figures should not be combined. Apple and Samsung company financial results were not reviewed for this edition.