[krisroadruck]

That's a tale of saturation. Toaster sales are probably relatively flat as well. Not because toaster use has declined but because people already have a toaster that meets their toasting needs. PC improvements have slowed to a crawl over the past decade in terms of real-world performance gains for the average consumer. Their 5 year old rig still manages to surf the web, stream videos, play games and send emails just fine so they see no reason to upgrade. Another 4 cores or the jump from 14nm+ to 14nm++++ isn't justifiable for the average user. That said I bet the combination of COVID + AMD really coming out swinging the past 2 years might make for a bit of an anomalous spike.

[macintux]

Well, smartphone sales have saturated at 1.5 billion while PC sales are around 75 million.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263437/global-smartphone...

The original proposition was that desktop sales would rise with mobile sales (with a lag time), and that's clearly not the case to this point, and there are no indicators that will ever be true.

[krisroadruck]

Have to agree with you there, smartphones are still seeing 2-3 year turn over that PCs no longer enjoy. Because they are small and visible out and about you have a second motivator for replacement besides straight improvement pressure. People using them as a status symbol/indicator feel the need to have the latest and greatest.

Phones, even the premium tier are a much less costly investment than a desktop PC. In addition to the $1500-$2500 for a decent desktop computer you also have all the supporting bits, a desk to put it on, a chair, maybe a printer, + the floorspace to house it all.

With a phone it's just the phone, and maybe a case. So while a household might be satisfied with a single desktop computer, every member of the household is going to want their own phone. More devices per household + higher turn over frequency = higher volume annual sales even at saturation.