PC sales in Africa and the Middle East fell by a massive 25,6% in the second quarter of 2015, the steepest decline ever recorded in the region for a single quarter, International Data Corp (IDC) said on Monday.
Overall PC shipments for the quarter fell to 3,3m units. Desktops were down by 21,2% year on year to 1,4m units, while the notebook segment declined by 28,6% to 1,9m units.
The slump, however, was not led by Africa, but rather by Turkey and laggards in the Middle East — Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Palestine. These markets had too much inventory, while currency fluctuations also impacted sales numbers.
Each of the leading vendors suffering significant year-on-year declines in their shipments to the region.
“Hewlett-Packard continued to lead in terms of market share, but saw its shipments fall 26% year on year,” IDC said.
“Second-placed Lenovo suffered a 19% decline, third-placed Dell posted a downturn of 10,3%, and fourth-placed Acer recorded a decrease of 29,3%, while Asus maintained its position at number five but experienced a decline of 26,7%.”
The year as a whole is expected to deliver the region’s worst ever performance, with overall PC shipments for the year set to fall by 15,7% year on year.
“Currency fluctuations both inside and outside the MEA region will remain largely responsible for the slower demand, particularly in key markets such as Turkey and Nigeria,” said Fouad Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
“Low oil prices are also impacting those countries, whose budgets rely strongly on oil revenues, ratcheting up the pressure on governments to control their spending. At the same time, the cannibalisation of PC demand by tablets and smartphones continues to hamper the market’s performance.”
In 2016, a partial recovery is, however, expected. IDC expects sales to grow by 10% next year. The following years are forecast to remain close to flat in terms of shipment growth.
“However, there will be a gradual shift in the weight of demand from consumers to the commercial segment as a growing proportion of home users switch from PCs to tablets and smartphones and commercial end users maintain their loyalty to PCs. As a result, commercial demand for PCs in the region is expected to surpass that from home users by the year 2017,” the company said. — © 2015 NewsCentral Media