The market for desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets in the META region will slump to its lowest levels in a decade next year, according to IDC’s Quarterly PCD Tracker. The overall personal computing device shipments for the region of 19.6 million units in 2019, the lowest total since 16.5 million units were shipped in 2009, as per forecasts.
Overall IDC is predicting a CAGR of -2.7% for the PCD market from 2018 to 2022, with 2022 shipments reaching just over 19m units. PC shipments will be down from 11.3m in 2018 to 10.6m in 2019, while tablet shipments will decline from 9.9m to 8.9m in the same period.
“The region’s largest market, Turkey, has seen its currency weaken to the lowest levels in history against the US dollar, causing the prices of imported goods from multinational brands to rise significantly,” said Fouad Charakla, IDC’s senior research manager for client devices in the META region. “This has had a significant negative impact on the purchasing power of end users in the country and will be a key inhibitor of growth over the coming quarters. Currency issues have also worsened in Iran due to the tightening of US sanctions against the country, meaning it is now far more difficult for market players in Iran to make payments in US dollars for supplies of imported PCs and tablets.”
These ongoing currency issues in Turkey and Iran played a considerable role in the META region’s overall PCD shipments declining 14.3% year on year in Q3 2018. IDC’s latest research shows that shipments fell to around five million units for the three-month period, the lowest quarterly level seen since Q3 2010.
“Turkey and Iran were not the only sore points for the META PCD market in Q3 2018, with the UAE also suffering a significant decline in shipments,” said Charakla. “This was caused by slow market sentiment in the country, particularly within the consumer segment. It’s also worth noting that he duration of the region’s largest IT and consumer electronics sales event, GITEX Shopper, hosted in Dubai in early October, was shortened when compared to last year.”
The top vendor rankings in the PC market remained unchanged in Q3 2018 compared to the same quarter last year. HP led the market with 29% market share, followed by Lenovo (21%), Dell (16.6%), Asus (5%) and Acer (4%). HP continued to gain share, maintaining a comfortable lead over its rivals. All other top vendors also gained share, with the exception of Asus, which suffered a significant decline.
In the tablet space, Samsung continued to lead in terms of units, having delivered a massive education project in Egypt which enabled it to gain share. Huawei and i-life also managed to gain share while Apple remained flat and Lenovo suffered a major decline.
IDC expects a shortage of supply of Intel CPUs in the market to kick in from Q4 2018. This shortage is expected to last through the first half of 2019 and will primarily impact entry-level CPUs such as Atom and Celeron. On a more positive note, IDC expects another massive delivery of slate tablets into Egypt’s education sector during the final quarter of 2018. The first instalment of around 100,000 tablets was delivered in Q3 2018.
