2024 can be said to be the first year of AI PC, with traditional PC manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, and Asus launching numerous AI PC products to seize the PC market. On May 9th, veteran PC manufacturer HP also launched multiple AI PCs, joining the battle to seize the AI PC market.
"AI will further optimize the user experience of PC users, while also improving their productivity and reducing problem-solving time. In the future, AI will gradually become the standard configuration of PC products," said Ye Maosheng, senior analyst at Canalys, in an interview with China Business Daily.
However, from the overall environment of the PC market, the decline is very obvious. According to a report by consulting firm IDC, as of the fourth quarter of 2023, global PC shipments have contracted year-on-year for the eighth consecutive quarter. According to data released by market research firm Canalys, the shipment volume of PC (excluding tablets) in mainland China in 2023 was 41.2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 17%. Specifically, in 2023, HP's PC shipment volume in the Chinese market was 4.3 million units, with a year-on-year growth rate of -2%. In terms of revenue, HP's net revenue for fiscal year 2023 was $53.7 billion, a decrease of 14.6% from $62.9 billion in fiscal year 2022.
Can PC manufacturers, including HP, leverage AI PCs and AI strategies to salvage performance in this wave of AI PCs?
Launch multiple AI PCs
Since 2023, technologies such as big models and generative AI have swept the world, and artificial intelligence is leading the wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation with its powerful influence. It is driving innovation and application at an unprecedented speed, and penetrating into various industries, injecting strong driving force into social development. According to market forecasts, the global artificial intelligence industry will achieve rapid growth from 2023 to 2030, and it is expected that the market size will exceed 10 trillion yuan by 2030.
PC is an important terminal in people's lives and work, and the AI wave has swept into the PC field, bringing new opportunities to PC.
In 2024, PC manufacturers such as Lenovo, Dell, Asus, and HP have launched numerous AI PC products to seize the PC market. The several AI PCs launched by HP this time are mainly aimed at the business end, including the EliteBook series high-end AI business laptops for large enterprise users and the new battle series AI business laptops for small and medium-sized enterprise users. At the personal application level, HP has launched the portable computer expert AI Xiaohui. In addition, ZBook mobile workstations and new Z-series AI all-in-one machines are also being launched for computing power users.
"At the beginning of the year, chip manufacturers abandoned the original Moore's Law (which describes the trend of the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubling approximately every 18 to 24 months) and joined the AI battlefield. Now, they are all emphasizing the NPU (neural processing unit) function in their CPUs. GPU manufacturers are also emphasizing that their floating-point computing capabilities are strengthening at the terminal. As they transition to terminal manufacturers, mobile phone and PC manufacturers are launching their own AI phones and AI PCs. This AI war has expanded from large model manufacturers, cloud manufacturers, software manufacturers to terminal manufacturers, ensuring that consumers can truly feel the inclusiveness of AI for everyone." said Wang Jiping, Vice President of IDC.
Zhuang Zhengsong, Senior Vice President and President of Greater China at HP, stated that AI does not need to be cloud powered every time. AI PCs can achieve localized artificial intelligence, preventing data from being transmitted back and forth. This way, data can be safer, faster, and more cost-effective for businesses.
Ketan Patel, Global Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Global Personal Information Products Division at HP, said in an interview that the potential for AI PCs to be applied throughout the industry is enormous. Individual consumers can improve production efficiency through AI PCs, and HP's AI assisted solutions have a huge chance of application in the industry, with applications in healthcare, manufacturing, and finance.
Regarding whether HP AI solutions will be widely promoted and applied on the enterprise side, Zhou Xinhong, Vice President of HP China Limited and General Manager of Personal Information Products Business Unit in Greater China, said, "The status of thousands of industries is very different, and they still need to evaluate carefully. We are only providing the latest solutions to the market and customers in various industries."
At present, most AI PC products are just emerging, and consumers will need some time to experience and recognize AI applications. IDC China Senior Research Manager Chen Shuxin told reporters that AI PCs are still in the early stages of development, whether it is from the implementation of large models by manufacturers or from the collaboration on the software side; Both on the end side and cloud side, AI PCs have not yet entered a very mature stage.
PC manufacturers emerge from a downturn?
Major PC manufacturers joining the AI PC battle in 2024 is not only related to the general trend of AI trends, but also to the decline of the traditional PC market.
According to IDC data, global traditional PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2023 slightly exceeded expectations, with shipments reaching nearly 67.1 million units, a decrease of 2.7% from the previous year. Among the top 5 global PC manufacturers, Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Asus have market share of 24.0%, 20.8%, 14.80%, 8.5%, and 6.3%, respectively. Among them, Lenovo and HP's shipment volume increased by 3.9% and 5.4% year-on-year, while Dell, Apple, and Asus's shipment volume decreased by 8.2%, 18.4%, and 11.9% respectively. It should also be noted that by the fourth quarter of 2023, PC shipments had contracted year-on-year for the eighth consecutive quarter.
Based on annual data, Canalys' report shows that the shipment volume of PC (excluding tablets) in mainland China in 2023 was 41.2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 17%.
"The decline in the previous quarters was mainly due to the impact of the global economy and the peak PC procurement during the pandemic." Chen Shuxin explained to reporters that there were purchasing peaks for PCs worldwide in 2020 and 2021. Online education and working from home gave rise to high demand for PCs in the global market. In the following two years, on the one hand, it took time for the economy to recover after the pandemic, and on the other hand, a large amount of PCs purchased during the pandemic filled the large demand. In the following two years, the demand for replacement machines decreased.
In the low point of the PC industry, competition among AI PCs has become inevitable in the overall environment. Canalys's report points out that the lifecycle of Windows 10 is coming to an end, and the PC industry will usher in a wave of device updates. Therefore, brand manufacturers, software and operating system manufacturers, component manufacturers, and channel providers must vigorously promote the advantages of AI enabled PCs to customers, and this effort is crucial.
For HP, the AI PC card is also needed to boost performance. Throughout the 2023 fiscal year, HP's net revenue was $53.7 billion, a 14.6% decrease from $62.9 billion in the 2022 fiscal year. As of January 31, 2024, the first quarter performance report for the fiscal year showed that HP's quarterly revenue was lower than expected due to the continued downturn in personal computer sales. As of January 31, HP's revenue decreased by 4.4% to $13.2 billion in the report. HP reported that its consumer business revenue decreased by 1% to $2.76 billion, marking the second consecutive year of revenue decline in its personal computer business; Commercial PC revenue decreased by 5% to $6.05 billion, with both businesses performing below expectations. The revenue of the printer department was 4.38 billion US dollars, which met expectations.
"In the past few years and now, we have faced numerous challenges," said Zhuang Zhengsong. "After three years of efforts, the global PC market has ushered in a healthy start to the year, with total shipments of desktops and laptops increasing by 3.2% in the first quarter of 2024, reaching 57.2 million units. Despite limited growth, we still see AI injecting new vitality into the PC market's recovery. We believe that by the second or third quarter, this number will return to around 60 million units."
Lenovo Group Chairman and CEO Yang Yuanqing also predicts that the global PC market will experience a year-on-year growth of approximately 5% in 2024. Affected by macroeconomic factors in the first half of the year and the peak period of device replacement during the previous wave of the epidemic, users have not yet reached the replacement cycle. At the same time, the replacement of Windows 11 is likely to occur in the second half of the year. Canalys's report predicts that nearly one-fifth of PCs shipped in 2024 will have AI functionality.
So, can HP seize this wave of AI PC opportunities?
At present, the Chinese market is unable to use all the features of Copilot. Chen Shuxin believes that the competition for AI PCs in the Chinese market is more prominent in the intelligent agent capabilities of each PC manufacturer, so the ability of large models and their coordination with related software become crucial. At the same time, in addition to computing power, AI PCs will also have higher requirements for corresponding memory, heat dissipation, and other aspects, and the price will correspondingly increase. How to make AI PCs accessible to more people, and how to balance price and performance, is also a problem that PC manufacturers need to face.
"We have seen HP's emphasis on AI and active launch of AI PC products, but currently, including PC manufacturers such as Intel, Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell, etc., all have recognized the importance of AI in the future technology industry and need to popularize AI applications. Therefore, we have not yet seen HP's advantage of 'standing out'," Ye Maosheng told reporters.