The Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market reported mild year-on-year growth of 4.8% during the second quarter of 2012.
This is according to market research firm IDC, which notes that a total of 5.4 million PCs were shipped into the region during that period.
IDC states that, contrary to previous trends, growth in the regional PC market was primarily driven by the desktop form-factor, which grew 7.2% year-on-year to reach a total of 2.2 million units.
Notebook shipments, on the other hand, grew at a relatively slower pace of 3.3% year-on-year, to reach 3.2 million units.
IDC explains that one of the key reasons for this slow growth was the combination of high volumes shipped by several vendors during the first quarter of 2012 and a notable slowdown in demand from end-users during the second quarter of the year. Certain vendors have also exited the second quarter of 2012 with high inventory levels in their channels.
“The slowdown in demand was experienced mainly due to a number of factors, including the cannibalisation of PC demand by media tablets, especially in the larger markets, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” says Fouad Rafiq Charakla, a research manager at IDC MEA.
“At the same time, political instability also played a key role in slowing down demand in other parts of the region, such as Egypt, Kuwait and Bahrain.”
Looking at the Turkish PC market, Asli Kockal, a senior research analyst at IDC Turkey, says the market experienced a slowdown in demand from both the consumer and commercial segments due to a number of outside influences.
“Ongoing tensions in the global economic environment, the increasingly perilous European debt crisis, stormy economic conditions in neighbouring countries, and persistent currency fluctuations all combined to negatively impact sales by forcing vendors to act cautiously throughout the quarter,” she says.
However, IDC notes, price erosion continued to be seen across most parts of the region, especially for notebooks, and this was accompanied by a greater shift towards entry-level models. This, in turn, enhanced affordability for end-users and prevented the regional notebook market from suffering a drastic slowdown.
According to the analyst firm, despite suffering a minor slowdown in volume of 2.7% year-on-year, HP continued to lead the regional PC market during the second quarter of 2012. Dell also experienced a slowdown in shipments, of 2.7% year-on-year, yet maintained its position at number two.
Recording strong year-on-year unit growth of 55.0%, Taiwanese vendor Acer retained its third place in the rankings.
Investing aggressively in the overall region and ramping up channel operations, Chinese vendor Lenovo attained substantial year-on-year growth of 40.5% to climb to fourth place in the MEA PC market. Notebook vendor Samsung maintained its position at number five, posting strong growth of 23.1% year-on-year.
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