Gartner: Companies expect no immediate benefit from local AI capabilities
According to market researchers, companies are upgrading PCs to be future-proof. They do not necessarily expect immediate benefits.
(Image: Andreas Wodrich / heise medien)
The market for desktop PCs and notebooks grew significantly in 2025. This is the conclusion of market researcher Gartner, supporting the previous observations by IDC. While the absolute numbers differ slightly due to different counting methods, the relative increases are similar. Gartner's statistics include all desktop PCs and notebooks running Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS.
Gartner estimates sales at 270 million devices for the entire year 2025, an increase of 9.1 percent compared to 2024. In the fourth quarter, sales were 71.5 million, a 9.3 percent increase compared to the fourth quarter of 2024. However, Gartner had recently observed a decline, despite discount campaigns from manufacturers.
| PC and Notebook Sales 2025 (in millions of units, Source: Gartner) | |||||
| Manufacturer | Sales 2025 | Market Share 2025 | Sales 2024 | Market Share 2024 | Growth |
| Lenovo | 73.567 | 27.2% | 62.542 | 25.3% | 17.6% |
| HP Inc. | 57.457 | 21.3% | 53.035 | 21.4% | 8.3% |
| Dell | 41.392 | 15.3% | 39.448 | 15.9% | 4.9% |
| Apple | 24.826 | 9.2% | 22.504 | 9.1% | 10.3% |
| ASUS | 18.512 | 6.9% | 17.351 | 7.0% | 6.7% |
| Acer | 16.963 | 6.3% | 16.927 | 6.8% | 0.2% |
| Others | 37.501 | 13.9% | 35.839 | 14.5% | 4.6% |
| Total | 270.218 | 100% | 247.646 | 100% | 9.1% |
Windows 10 Support, Tariffs, and AI
The market researcher cites three main reasons for the growth: the end of Windows 10 support, along with high costs for extended security updates, uncertainty about potential tariffs, and rising memory prices. As a result, companies are said to have upgraded more extensively.
Artificial intelligence apparently plays only a minor role. "Most AI PC features, such as local inference, [have] not yet delivered significant productivity gains compared to cloud-based AI solutions," Gartner notes. "Therefore, many companies are upgrading primarily to future-proof their fleets, rather than to derive immediate business benefits from AI capabilities."
The memory crisis is only mentioned in passing by the market observer. IDC, in its report, was more alarmed with probable sales declines in 2026.
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