According to TrendForce's latest research report, the global notebook market will be sluggish in 2023 due to the impact of high inflation, with annual shipments of only 16.6 billion units, down 10 percent year-on-year8%, but the recession is lower than in 2022.
TrendForce expects that in the first half of 2024, with the gradual reduction of inventories in the inventory of major notebook manufacturers, the easing of inflation, the expectation of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the end of support for Windows 10 and the expected release of Windows 12, it is expected to promote the replacement wave of notebook products brought about by the system security upgrade of enterprise users, and drive the demand for notebook replacement. The global notebook market will show moderate growth, with an annual growth rate of about 36%, up to 17.2 billion units.
In addition, the AI PC topic has become the spotlight at CES 2024, and chip manufacturers such as Intel and AMD have taken the lead in cooperating with notebook brands to launch a series of new products with built-in AI acceleration engines. The addition of the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) means that personal computers no longer rely solely on CPUs or GPUs for performance, but can also use AI functions to more accurately calculate workloads and share the power consumption of the whole machine, and at the same time, with the Copilot shortcut keys of Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system, bringing consumers an efficient and energy-saving experience.
According to TrendForce, the audience of the first-generation AI PCs is dominated by high-end business needs and content creators, after all, the price of the terminal will naturally rise due to the significant increase in chip performance and the increase in the specifications of related components such as memory, battery, and heat dissipation. This year, CES manufacturers mostly focus on hardware competition, even if consumers are willing to buy AI PCs that are higher than the average price of general notebooks by more than 50%, but from a realistic point of view, in the absence of strong AI applications, the growth space of AI PC penetration rate in 2024 will still be relatively limited, and related software innovation applications are the key to whether AI PCs can drive global notebook shipments to usher in growth in the next two or three years.