Global PC Sales Surge Despite Component Shortage

Even though the pandemic has caused a constrained market and broken supply chains, which amongst other has resulted in a semiconductor shortage, figures from research of this year‘s first quarter 

have shown that global PC shipments increased over 30 percent from the same period last year, increasing from about 50 mill to 70 mill units. This is the fastest growth in the any year since one started tracking the PC market about 20 years ago.
One reason for this is said to be delays due the shipment chaos of early 2020. However, semiconductor shortages are now again adversely affecting the supply chain, with shipment lead times for some extending many months.

Unfulfilled PC demand from last year has carried forward into the first quarter, and additional demand brought on by the pandemic has also continued to drive volume.
Apparently, however, the PC demand is expected to remain strong, even after stay-at-home restrictions ease as countries gain control over the pandemic outbreaks.

One particular growth area is education, after the pandemic forced schools etc to turn to digital platforms. Other areas with growth in demand is in gaming and the need for higher-performance notebooks in the enterprise market as well as an increase in demand for touchscreens.

Both for businesses, education and consumers, one sees much higher demands than expected, regardless of many countries beginning to reduce/remove pandemic related restrictions.
And it is expected that the component shortages will remain a bottleneck during 2021 as well.
In terms of sales volumes so far this year, the 5 top brands are Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple and Acer.
More information about this topic may be seen e.g. here