Logitech sales slide mirrors PC shipment slump

[Shawn Knight]

In brief: Logitech has shared preliminary financial results for the holiday quarter that more or less mirror the broader PC market, and it's not great news for investors. For the quarter ending December 31, 2022, Logitech logged preliminary net sales of between $1.26 billion and $1.27 billion. That is down between 22 and 23 percent in US dollars compared to the same period a year earlier.

Operating income checked in at between $171 million and $176 million, which is down between 33 and 35 percent compared to the $263 million generated in the same quarter a year ago.

Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell said they were disappointed in the preliminary results, adding that they reflect challenging macroeconomic conditions including a slowdown in sales to enterprise customers. Based on these softer figures and continued uncertainty in the supply chain due to the ongoing Covid outbreak in China, the peripheral maker is lowering its full-year outlook.

Logitech's previous fiscal year 2023 outlook included between $650 million and $750 million in non-GAAP operating income and between negative eight and negative four percent sales growth. The adjusted outlook is now between $500 million and $600 million, and between negative 15 percent and negative 13 percent sales growth.

The Swiss-based peripheral maker was one of several businesses that benefited during the pandemic. As companies shifted to work-from-home models to remain afloat during lockdown, sales of PCs and accompanying accessories like keyboards and mice skyrocketed. With the pandemic mostly behind us, demand for PCs and accessories has cooled considerably.

Shares in Logitech are down roughly 20 percent on the news.

Earlier this week, IDC said global shipments of traditional PCs dipped 28.1 percent in the holiday quarter compared to the same three-month period in 2021. In fact, the decline was comparable to the fourth quarter of 2018 when Intel was struggling with CPU inventory.

IDC expects certain segments of the PC market to start recovering by the end of this year with broader growth to follow in 2024.

Image credit: Patrick Campanale, Matheus Bertelli

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https://www.techspot.com/news/97267-logitech-sales-slide-mirrors-pc-shipment-slump.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Well yeah, nobody can afford anything.

Prices at the grocery store went up again last week. Another $5 a week for food now. Guess what? I'm going to make that old keyboard work for another year. The keycaps are worn but they still function.

 

[Phylop]

They need to bring back a new and improved G700/s with new and improved features. Give it lightspeed wireless and powerplay support. There is no other mouse out there with the same great 4 thumb button layout that is so great.

 

[Superconductor]

People underestimate the impact of Inflation.

 

[Tams80]

Too expensive, and you know, they could actually release something different for a change.

The only recent product they've released that's offered anything different or uncommon/unique are their low profile mechanical keyboards - and they haven't even updated their gaming version to use USB C.

Where are the mice of different shapes and sizes, with lots of buttons? Where is the successor to the G13? What about VR controllers (that could also be used with a mouse)?

What about using some of those juicy profits to find a way to force PC games that don't allow simultaneous DInput and XInput to allow it?

 

[Axeia]

If it was up to me they had sold even less but my gf did end up buying the G502 X Plus*. What an absolutely stupid amount of money for a mouse. When something is that overpriced (£140 GBP) I'd expect perfection but the click sound is very inconsistent and sounds cheap. In that regard it's worse than it's predecessor.
So yeah, 5 times the price of it's predecessor and what do you get, a different colour, wireless capabilities and some RGB (and lose out on the ability to add weights because that's gone out of fashion) - just double the amount would have been outrageous enough.

If they want to make more money I'd say they should simplify their products, a mouse doesn't need as many screws and parts as the g502 X Plus does. I'm on my phone and can't find the exact number but I think it's 30 something. That's a lot of costly assembly work! Reduce the complexity, which reduces the weight and costs. Sell it cheaper and more people will buy the cheaper lighter mouse.

*The g502 is her favourite and she's been looking for a white mouse for almost 2 years and thus couldn't resist a wireless white g502.

 

[Kashim]

I knew things were headed south when Logitech shortened their logo to just logi (all lower case) to try and stay relevant and cool. They should just lose the I from the end and just call it "log" like the one I left in the toilet earlier.

 

[Hodor]

Yet another great hardware manufacturer going down. Pity. I really liked their hardware.

My oldest Logitech mouse is old enough to get a driving license in USA. Still works perfectly.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

When they charge 2x the price for the wireless G502 than the wired and $270AU they deserve to suffer.

 

[Loli Pop Carbon]

Their prices are too expensive. I'm not willing to spend that amount of money just for peripherals. Lots of cheaper alternative out there.

 

[DekkB]

Logitech mice are very over-priced concidering how long they last.
Every Logitech mouse I have bought(6 in total) has started double-clicking after 12 to 18 months, and then it ends up in the bin.
It doesn't matter how high spec the mouse is; the same cheap component fails - the heavily used microswitch under the left-click button.
I can no longer afford to keep rebuying Logitech.

 

[Edster]

Computer peripherals are a nice to have.

Logitech numbers were always going to slide, considering that they probably had a huge bump in recent years due to pandemic/working from home normalisation. Also, as much as Logitech, Razer, Steelseries etc tries to tell us, it is perfectly ok to play games with an office mice, office keyboard and a pair of normal bluetooth headset, with exception if you are on the sweaty end of competitive games where all the little weight and DPI adjustments will make slight differences.

 

[nismo91]

My mouse middle button started acting up. decent replacement would cost north of 50 bucks.

a short spray of contact cleaner seems to have solved it so far. better use the $50 for groceries for this week.

 

[Marco Mint]

Logitech sales are probably sliding to some extent, due to their insistent use of the terrible mouse switches that are forever double clicking after a short period of time. I've 3 mice from them that I bought in recent years with this problem and went with another brand that has optical switches, purely due to this reason.
Give me a wireless mouse with optical switches that also uses AA batteries and I will buy them. I don't care if a G305 lasts only 2 months with the optical switches on those 2 AA batteries instead of the normal 4 or 5 months without. I have spare batteries on my desk that are swappable within 10 seconds! I refuse to buy any mouse with an inbuilt rechargeable battery due to it eventually going to need a messy replacement and also having to charge the damn thing up when I'm in the middle of working with it or mid game.

 

[Puiu]

Logitech sales are probably sliding to some extent, due to their insistent use of the terrible mouse switches that are forever double clicking after a short period of time. I've 3 mice from them that I bought in recent years with this problem and went with another brand that has optical switches, purely due to this reason.
Give me a wireless mouse with optical switches that also uses AA batteries and I will buy them. I don't care if a G305 lasts only 2 months with the optical switches on those 2 AA batteries instead of the normal 4 or 5 months without. I have spare batteries on my desk that are swappable within 10 seconds! I refuse to buy any mouse with an inbuilt rechargeable battery due to it eventually going to need a messy replacement and also having to charge the damn thing up when I'm in the middle of working with it or mid game.

I've had more logitech mouse than I can count (and I bought for work and friends too). never had the issues you describe, in fact most people praise them for how well they laster through the years and the very long battery life. maybe there are different versions in other countries? O_o

I've bought Razer mouse too. Couldn't stomach the battery life (I was burning batteries several times per month) and the build quality was atrocious.

 

[Marco Mint]

I've had more logitech mouse than I can count (and I bought for work and friends too). never had the issues you describe, in fact most people praise them for how well they laster through the years and the very long battery life. maybe there are different versions in other countries? O_o

I've bought Razer mouse too. Couldn't stomach the battery life (I was burning batteries several times per month) and the build quality was atrocious.

I've maybe a 8-10 broken Logitech mice sitting in a box here.
Either the cables frayed and broke where they enter the mouse, or the wireless ones switches failed. I've two G305's, a G604 and a G603 ALL with that same problem, and those wireless mice were bought within the last 4 years! I got fed up with the double clicking and bought a Razer viper 8k in the black friday sale for £23. Go check out Amazons mouse reviews and a load of people with the exact same problems.

 

[Puiu]

I've maybe a 8-10 broken Logitech mice sitting in a box here.
Either the cables frayed and broke where they enter the mouse, or the wireless ones switches failed. I've two G305's, a G604 and a G603 ALL with that same problem, and those wireless mice were bought within the last 4 years! I got fed up with the double clicking and bought a Razer viper 8k in the black friday sale for £23. Go check out Amazons mouse reviews and a load of people with the exact same problems.

I have thousands of hours in FPS titles (steam shows 1.5k hours just for cs:go) and other intense mouse games (alongside work colleagues, family and friends whom all have logitech), I find it hard to believe that they broke that easily.

Maybe in your country you are getting something produced in a different place?

As for Amazon reviews, the G305 alone has over 22k reviews with an average of 4.5 stars. Kinda hard not to find a few that have issues when so many buy them. The 502 has 43k reviews for the wired version and 10k for the wireless one.

not that I take amazon reviews seriously...

The only problem I have right now is that the soft rubber is starting to show signs of wear.

 

[Marco Mint]

I have thousands of hours in FPS titles (steam shows 1.5k hours just for cs:go) and other intense mouse games (alongside work colleagues, family and friends whom all have logitech), I find it hard to believe that they broke that easily.

Maybe in your country you are getting something produced in a different place?

As for Amazon reviews, the G305 alone has over 22k reviews with an average of 4.5 stars. Kinda hard not to find a few that have issues when so many buy them. The 502 has 43k reviews for the wired version and 10k for the wireless one.

not that I take amazon reviews seriously...

The only problem I have right now is that the soft rubber is starting to show signs of wear.

I've no desire to prove anything to anyone. If its hard for you to believe something, that's fine.
As for the 1500 hours in cs, I've nearly 3800 hours in 7 days to die and at one time had 7000+ hours in wolfenstein enemy territory and maybe even more in all the battlefields and Arma games, but honestly, I probably do more clicking in apps and browsing than I do in gaming. The fact is, thousands of people are complaining about the same problem and someone is finding this hard to believe. Oh well.
As for 'in my country' that would be Europe, as I buy from lots of different countries in Europe, inc UK and German PC stores. It's mainly from Amazon themselves though, never from Amazon sellers.
A quick google search will educate you as to the reasons why it's happening. I already know why. Or just hit YouTube with a "Logitech double click" search and see the results.