The Middle East and Africa PC market experienced a "significant decline" of 14.1% year-on-year during the first quarter of 2013, according to preliminary results released by International Data Corporation (IDC).
Total PC shipments in the region slowed down to 5.3 million units, with desktops declining 18.4% year-on-year, to two million units, while notebook shipments declined 11.2% year-on-year, to total 3.3 million units.
Globally, the IDC has said the shipment of PCs declined almost 6% more than originally forecast for the first quarter of 2013, dropping 13.9% year-on-year.
Shifting trend
"With a growing portion of end-users opting for tablets to meet their computing needs, the demand for PCs continues to suffer," says Fouad Rafiq Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.
"Looking at the more mature markets within the region, this trend is extremely visible within the power retail channel, where tablet sales have already exceeded portable PC sales in some power retail outlets. Meanwhile, in markets where the purchasing power of end-users is more restricted, low-cost tablets are cannibalising the demand for locally-assembled desktops."
Microsoft's recently-launched operating system, Windows 8, which was primarily designed for a touch-enabled interface, has also been unable to spur incremental demand for PCs in the region, says the IDC.
"Since adding the touch-screen interface hikes up the price of a PC by a considerable margin, the majority of PCs shipped presently still lack touch-enabled screens," says Charakla. "This has had the consequence of preventing the operating system from delivering to end-users the user experience it is capable of, thus causing the demand for PCs to slow down."
Economic hurdle
Growing competition from tablets has caused all key markets in the Middle East and Africa region to decline year-on-year, with the exception of Turkey, which attained marginal growth, driven by an aggressive sell-in push from certain vendors, power retail campaigns, and public sector initiatives.
The shift towards demand for tablets was the key reason for the year-on-year declines in PC shipments seen in both Saudi Arabia and South Africa, while the worsening economic situation in SA compounded the slowdown of its PC market, says IDC.
Despite suffering a sharp year-on-year decline in PC shipments of 28.8%, HP continued to dominate the Middle East and Africa PC market during the first quarter of 2013. Dell also experienced a slowdown in shipments, posting a decline of 12.3% year on year, but it maintained its position at number two.
Lenovo was the only player among the top vendors to experience growth in the region during the first quarter, growing 44.1% year-on-year to place third. "A common trait among each of these top vendors is that all three enjoy a stronghold in both the commercial and consumer end-user segments," says IDC.
Portable PC vendor Toshiba suffered a decline of 5.4% year-on-year, but was able to climb up to fourth position, while Taiwanese vendor Acer saw its PC shipments shrink by 25.5% over the same period as it slipped down to fifth place. "The key strengths of both these vendors continue to lie mainly within the consumer segment."
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