Hooray for the PC: Sales are up by nearly 10% on last year, but predictably things are quite a bit slower in the US
Good news for the PC massive. According to the market data wonks at IDC, worldwide PC sales are up by nearly 10% in their latest figures. However, sales in the US alone only crept up by 1%.
To be more specific, IDC reckons worldwide PC sales in the third quarter of 2025 are precisely 9.4% higher than the same period in 2024. In the US, meanwhile, sales only cedged up by that 1% figure for the same period, while Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) went gangbusters at fully 14%, as did Asia Pacific, scoring the same 14% figure.
Generally, IDC reckons it's going to be a very strong year, largely "fuelled by the Windows 11 transition", but that "the North American market continues to be impacted by the US import tariffs shock and by macroeconomic uncertainties." IDC also says Asia's success "was driven largely by Japan’s hardware refresh linked to Windows 10 end-of-support and the GIGA education project," but doesn't elaborate on EMEA's equally big uptick.
Still, IDC is positive about the near future for the PC. "The demand for newer PCs ready for Windows 11 is likely to push well into 2026,” the research outfit predicts. At first glance, the whole 'Windows 11 push' thing might seem a bit odd. After all, Windows 11 has been out since October 2021.
However, there are a couple of key Windows 11-adjacent issues that are presumably behind these figures. First, Microsoft is ending most (but not quite all) support for Windows 10 on October 14. So, that's a pretty major impetus for a run on new PC sales.
At the same time, there's the whole AI thing, with some PCs now being marketed as AI-ready alongside Microsoft's Copilot+ AI gubbins for Windows 11. That may be encouraging a few PC users to upgrade, too.
Either way, the PC is looking fairly healthy with a grand total of 75.9 million units sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2025. Oh, and if you're wondering who the biggest players in the PCdom are right now, Lenovo tops the table with 19.4 million PCs sold, HP is next on 15 million, then Dell on 10.1 million, Apple on 6.8 million (yup, Apple computers count as PCs), and finally Asus notched up 5.9 million.
Indeed, not only do those five players dominate the market with just over 75% overall share, but they also enjoyed the bulk of the sales growth. The rest of the market only grew by 3%, meaning those five notched up over 10% growth on average. Not bad, not bad at all.