CONTEXT has reported strong year-on-year growth in desktop PC revenues across European distribution in April & May 2025, outpacing notebooks in both unit and revenue performance.
According to the global market intelligence firm’s SalesWatch report, desktop PC revenues rose by 22% year- on-year in the first two months of Q2, with unit growth closely mirroring revenue. In contrast, notebook revenues increased by a more modest 7%, with unit growth at just 3% year-on-year.
Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT, said: “Desktops have been the standout performer over the past six months. Their share of total PC revenues in early Q2 reached nearly 17%, the highest level in CONTEXT’s two-year reporting period.
This reflects both a long- overdue refresh cycle in commercial environments and the typical spike in
demand ahead of major OS support deadlines (in this case the end-of- support for Windows 10).”
In the notebook segment, growth is more nuanced, according to CONTEXT. Countries such as Germany, the UK and Poland are performing well, unaffected by the decline in education sector purchases that skewed comparisons in markets like France, Spain and Italy. UK distributors report stronger momentum driven by Windows 11 upgrades, with commercial and consumer segments both contributing.
Meanwhile, AI-ready notebooks featuring dedicated NPUs (neural processing units) are slowly shifting the market landscape. These accounted for 40-41% of notebook volumes in recent months, although demand is still primarily shaped by the arrival of new processor generations, not customer pull. Notably, Copilot+ devices have climbed from 5% of AI-capable notebook sales in January to 13% in May, led by Intel’s Lunar Lake systems in the commercial space.
“The rise of Copilot+ devices is one of the most important trends to watch in the second half of 2025 and moving into 2026,” said Pygott. “Adoption is still early-stage, but momentum is gradually increasing and we’re expecting this to accelerate as use cases multiply and prices come down.”
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