Middle East PC sales to remain flat in 2017

PC shipments in the Middle East and Africa are expected to remain flat next year after stabilising in the third quarter, according to IDC.

The company said 0.4 per cent growth was seen in the market in Q3, bringing shipments to 3 million units after, annual declines for six consecutive quarters.

During the period desktop shipments declined 16.9 per cent to 1.1 million units and notebook shipments grew 14.5 per cent to reach 1.9 million units.

“The recovery witnessed in Turkey, the largest single market in the MEA region, was the biggest contributor towards this growth, due to unusually low shipments in Q3 2015 and a faster-than-expected recovery from the failed military coup,” said Fouad Charakla, senior research manager for client devices at IDC MEA.

“At the same time, some recovery from instability in the North African markets, when compared to last year, also contributed towards PC shipment growth, while deliveries as part of large education deals in the UAE and Kenya were other notable market drivers.”

IDC noted that Microsoft no longer lists the GCC countries with emerging market for operating system pricing, meaning they are now charged slightly more.

This change drove vendors to push their sell-in orders before the change came into effect and drove shipments across the six Gulf countries.

During the quarter the top five vendors accounted for 77 per cent of shipments, compared to 67.5 per cent in Q3 of 2015.

The top five maintained their positions in terms of market share, while local assembler continued to lose their share due to competition from refurbished PCs and aggressively priced notebooks.

HP in particular recorded significant growth quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year accounting for the largest share secured by a single vendor in the last decade.

Lenovo stood in second place thanks to a large delivery to the UAE education sector, Dell declined year-on-year in its three biggest markets South Africa, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, Asus was the fastest growing vendor in the region and Acer secured some shipment growth.

IDC said it had revised its outlook for the market downward due to expected declines in the next two quarters, namely currency issues in key markets like as Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, and South Africa and restrictions on government initiatives due to low oil prices.

“Such factors are expected to lead to project delays or even cancellations across the GCC, as well as in Nigeria and other African countries,” Charakla said.

IDC said these factors meant no significant improvement in shipments was predicted in 2017 but marginal growth was expected from 2018 to 2020 as markets like Nigeria, Pakistan and Egypt with low PC penetration up orders.