The Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market has witnessed a 25.9
per cent year-on-year decline in shipments in the first quarter 2016, reports
ITRealms.
Acclaimed global technology research and consulting firm, the
International Data Corporation (IDC) made this revelation at the weekend,
saying that shipments to the region fell for the fourth consecutive quarter, to
total 3.2 million units.
Notebooks, IDC said, recorded a sharp 28.7 per cent decline in
shipments to total 1.9 million units, while desktop shipments registered a
comparatively slower decline, falling by 21.4 per cent year-on-year to total 1.3
million units.
The Senior Research Manager for Personal Computing, Systems, and
Infrastructure Solutions, IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey at IDC, Fouad
Charakla, said all the largest markets in the region declined in the first
quarter Q1 of 2016.
“The reasons differ from country to country, but 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. 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,” Charakla
said.
Akin to previous quarters, Charakla pointed out that the
positions of the top three vendors remained unchanged in Q1 2016, despite experiencing
a year-on-year decline of 23.4 per cent in shipments.
“HP remained the market leader, securing the highest market
share ever 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 per
cent, while third-placed Dell suffered the sharpest decline of all vendors,
recording a 28.9 per cent fall in shipments,” the manager said.
In the intervening time, fourth-ranked Acer was the only vendor
to experience growth in the region, with a 2.2 per cent year-on-year increase
in shipments. However, the gap in terms of the market share of the top four
vendors remains significant with Asus in fifth place, although Asus suffered a
year-on-year decline of 7.3per cent in shipments during the first quarter of
the year.
“With the approach of the holy month of Ramadan combined with
the usual summer slowdown in activity, the second quarter of 2016 is also
expected to record a decline in shipments, albeit a much softer one,” continues
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. Some substantial desktop orders were secured by local brands in
Egypt and Algeria during Q1 2016, 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 further noted that there will continue to 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, commercial
demand for PCs in the region is expected to surpass that of home users by 2018.
Chuks Egbuna/GEE
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