TECH NEWS – If many people are worried that Trump’s tariffs will make everything more expensive, it’s no wonder many are shopping ahead.
International Data Corporation (IDC) has released its latest data on PC hardware sales for the first quarter of 2025. Recently, Counterpoint also released their PC hardware sales statistics for the first quarter of the year, which suggested good growth in AI PC sales, and the growth seemed incredibly significant during this period. While the various IT segments showed good growth overall, PCs saw the largest year-over-year increase. Compared to last year, both the laptop and PC segments saw a huge increase in sales, which IDC said was largely due to the Trump tariffs, which created uncertainty and anxiety among PC hardware manufacturers, distributors, and consumers.
“The primary catalyst for growth in personal computing devices has been the heightened uncertainty surrounding tariff negotiations between the U.S. and trading partners. Despite the risks to economic growth from rising tariffs, channels and business segments accelerated purchases in anticipation of future cost increases,” said Ruth Flynn, Research VP of IDC Tracker & Data Products.
This was also one of the findings of Counterpoint, which saw a noticeable uptick in AI PC sales compared to the previous quarter. For the second quarter in a row, the North American personal computer sector grew 27.8% year-over-year, according to IDC. Sales of laptops also grew 26.9% year over year, while desktop PCs saw a massive 35.3% increase over the same period, resulting in total revenue of $4.07 billion.
Surprisingly, workstation sales grew even faster, up 49.3% year over year. This was due to panic buying by distributors and retailers ahead of the imposition of U.S. tariffs on other countries, including China (where PC hardware manufacturing is most dominant). Distributor revenue grew 7.6% year over year to $19.9 billion. Although the current 90-day suspension of the tariffs is still active, the uncertainty has led to rapid sales in the first quarter of 2025.
Software sales are the second most affected segment, despite being exempt from tariffs. They grew 13.2% year-over-year, accumulating nearly $4.5 billion in revenue this quarter. Storage software, security software, and physical and virtual computing software grew the most during this period, all with double-digit increases. It doesn’t matter if everything gets more expensive, people will buy sooner…
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