Gartner: AI PC and GenAI smartphone shipments to approach 300 million units in 2024

Global shipments of personal computers (AI PCs) with built-in artificial intelligence (AI PCs) and smartphones with built-in generative AI (GenAI) are expected to increase from 29 million units in 2023 to 295 million units by the end of 2024, according to a new forecast from Gartner.

Gartner defines AI PCs as PCs equipped with dedicated AI accelerators or cores, neural processing units (NPUs), accelerated processing units (APUs) or tensor processing units (TPUs) designed to optimize and accelerate AI tasks on the device. This provides improved performance and efficiency when processing AI and GenAI workloads without relying on external servers or cloud services.

Gartner estimates that by the end of 2024, shipments of GenAI smartphones and AI PCs will reach 240 million and 54.5 million units, respectively, accounting for 22% of smartphone and PC shipments in 2024, respectively.

After eight consecutive quarters of decline, the PC market returns to growth in the fourth quarter of 2023. Gartner estimates that total PC shipments will reach 250.4 million units in 2024, up 3.5% from 2023. In 2024, on-device AI should reinvigorate PC sales and help maintain the existing expected replacement cycle, eliminating some of the negative effects of the disruptive socioeconomic environment.

Smartphone market to resume growth in 2024

As with AI-enabled PCs, GenAI smartphones won’t boost smartphone demand until 2027.

After nine consecutive quarters of decline, the smartphone market grew for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2023. In 2024, global smartphone shipments are expected to grow 4.2% year-on-year to 1.2 billion units.