report excerpt
Q4’21 maintains torrid — albeit unsustainable — workstation market growth
There will be a quarter that ends the workstation market’s historically high growth, but fourth quarter of 2021 wasn’t it. Yet again, quarterly growth far outpaced levels any would justifiably describe as organic, with Q4 maintaining a blistering string of recent results, at 42.8% year-over-year (YoY) and 6.1% sequential.
What was even more impressive about the quarter’s yearly growth compared to that of its two sequential predecessors was the context. While strong YoY growth of 2021’s second and third quarters referenced the 2020’s pandemic-induced market low point, the fourth quarter of 2021’s 44.9% is measured relative to a Q4 of 2020 that had marked a pronounced bounce back from that low point, essentially to pre-pandemic levels.
The quarter also clearly signaled a shift in the mix of workstation platforms, as the mobile workstation, the preferred platform in the work-from-home transition of the past two years, slowed its growth.
JPR Workstation Report author Alex Herrera explains, “We’d been waiting to see a rebound in fixed/deskbound workstations as the pandemic receded and workers returned to offices. After delays in that plan due to COVID-19 variants and surges, it would appear businesses are finally committing to a return and starting to update offices with more traditional fixed machines. I expect the next couple of quarters to follow suit, with strong fixed sales.”