this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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A pretty large amount of people don't own a PC at all, though I'm finding it surprisingly hard to get a good number on it. Just anecdotally, most people I know who aren't IT professionals have either no PC or 1 old laptop, often from college or on loan from work. Most folks use their phones for everything. People I know with kids have school issued Chromebooks, which barely counts.
As to exact numbers, I'm curious what others can find. I turned up between 74% and 94% of adults in the US owned a PC, which seems insanely high to me. But on the same page claiming that 89% of all households have a PC, I also saw
Which... That's bonkers. They expect the number of PCs (in homes) to go up by a factor of 30 in just 5 years, presumably that guess was before tariffs as well. I'm wondering if these household and per capita numbers somehow include corporate spending because businesses and schools do purchase literal tons of computers.
4.7 million sounds like a typo honestly. 47 million would make more sense considering that many people need their own PC to do freelance work.
I'm doubting that many people will suddenly see the benefits of PCs over phones and tablets in order for these numbers to blow up, but I could be wrong. It seems that mobile devices fill that need for most people and it's been that way for a while. Given the tariffs though, it may be a comparatively better time to get a PC for gaming than an Xbox or PS and that could bring the numbers up.