Subscribe

MEA PC shipments drop again

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 06 Jun 2016
HP remains the MEA market leader, despite a 23% decline in Q1 PC shipments.
HP remains the MEA market leader, despite a 23% decline in Q1 PC shipments.

The Middle East and African (MEA) PC market saw shipments fall for the fourth consecutive quarter, to total 3.2 million units.

This is according to global technology research and consulting firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), which found PC shipments to the region declined 25.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2016.

IDC senior research manager Fouad Charakla says all of the largest markets in the region declined in the first quarter, with reasons differing from country to country.

"Slowdowns in tourist spending, lower consumer confidence resulting from low oil prices, political and economic instability, currency devaluations, and military conflicts have all played a part in the regional contraction."

Notebooks recorded a sharp 28.7% decline in shipments to total 1.9 million units, while desktop shipments registered a comparatively slower decline, falling by 21.4% year-on-year to total 1.3 million units.

"The ongoing shift in end-user spending toward smartphones and, to a lesser extent, tablets in the consumer segment was also a key element in the market's decline," adds Charakla.

Similar to previous quarters, the positions of the top three vendors remained unchanged in the quarter. Despite experiencing a year-on-year decline of 23.4% in shipments, HP remained the market leader, securing the highest market share attained by a PC vendor in the region over the past 10 years.

Second-placed Lenovo registered a slightly deeper year-on-year decline of 25.2%, while third-placed Dell suffered the sharpest decline of all vendors, recording a 28.9% fall in shipments.

Meanwhile, fourth-ranked Acer was the only vendor to experience growth in the region - with a 2.2% year-on-year increase in shipments - and fifth placed Asus dropped 7.3% during the quarter.

"With the approach of the holy month of Ramadan combined with the usual [seasonal] slowdown in activity, the second quarter of 2016 is also expected to record a decline in shipments, albeit a much softer one," says Charakla.

"In the longer term, the PC market is expected to recover to some extent in 2017, with modest growth anticipated in the following years. Shipments to Africa are expected to grow slightly faster than shipments to the Middle East."

IDC says some substantial desktop orders were secured by local brands in Egypt and Algeria during Q1 and there were also a number of large education sector deliveries that took place in smaller African markets during the quarter, such as in Rwanda, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

IDC maintains its previous forecasts that there will be a gradual shift in the pattern of demand from consumers to commercial customers, as a growing proportion of home users switch from PCs to tablets and smartphones, while commercial end-users retain a stronger loyalty to PCs.

The only exception to this trend will be the education sector, where commercial users will transition from PCs to tablets at a much faster rate. Despite this anomaly, IDC says commercial demand for PCs in the region is expected to surpass that of home users by 2018.

Share