PC shipments in Africa and the Middle East fell by a massive 25.6 percent from 4.4m units to 3.3m units during Q2 2015. The decline represented the region’s biggest fall in a single quarter, according to International Data Corp (IDC).
The sector’s performance at the end of the year is predicted to fall to an all time low with an overall year on year reduction of 15.7 percent in shipments.
According to the IDC, the leading vendors in the region – Hewlett-Packard (HP), Lenovo, Dell, Acer, and Asus all had slumps in shipment for the quarter. Although HP saw its shipment reduced by 26 percent for the quarter, it remained the market leader. Lenovo in second place also suffered a 10.3 percent reduction .
In third place was Dell whose shipment fell by 10.3 percent, while Acer came fourth with
a decrease of 29.3 percent. Asus remained in fifth position with a decrease of 26.7percent in shipments.
Fouad Charakla, Research Manager for personal computing, system and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey said, “Currency fluctuation both inside and outside of MEA region will remain largely responsible for the slower demand, particularly in key markets such as Turkey and Nigeria.”
Other causes are drop in oil prices which no doubt reduced the purchasing power of the region considering majority of the region’s revenues are still derived from the exploration of crude oil.
Another key indicator is the how PC use has been usurped by tablets and smartphones.
It isn’t all gloom though as IDC expects a partial recovery with sales billed to increase by 10 percent in 2016, fuelled by commercial end users and strong loyalty from PC users.
