The Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market suffered another sharp decline in Q3 2015, according to the latest insights from global technology research and consulting firm International Data Corporation (IDC). Shipments slumped 27.8% year on year, which represents the steepest decline ever recorded in the region for a single quarter. Desktop shipments declined 21.0% year on year to total 1.3 million units, while the notebook segment shrank 32.6% to total 1.7 million units, partially owing to the cannibalization of consumer demand by tablets and smartphones.
"In a continuation from Q2 2015, Turkey and the 'Rest of the Middle East' region (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Palestine) experienced the sharpest declines within MEA," says Fouad Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "However, the quarter also saw steep declines in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with the former seeing its economy hampered by low oil prices and the latter failing to repeat the massive education projects that caused a spike during the corresponding quarter last year."
The top three vendors remained unchanged in Q3 2015, with all of them suffering significant declines. HP continued to lead in terms of market share, but saw its shipments fall 27.7% year on year, while second-placed Lenovo suffered a 37.6% reverse as the vendor made greater efforts to reduce its inventory levels. Third-placed Dell posted a decline of 11.6%, with fourth-placed Acer and fifth-placed Asus experiencing declines of 16.9% and 36.3%, respectively. It is worth noting that the top three vendors combined accounted for more than 65% of commercial PC demand in the region during the quarter. Local desktop assemblers in the region continued to suffer significantly in comparison to the previous year as demand for their devices continues to be cannibalized by the growing availability of aggressively priced refurbished PCs.
The final quarter of the year is expected to play host to yet another steep year-on-year decline, with IDC forecasting the market for 2015 as a whole to total 14 million units, down 22.2% on 2014. "Most of the key inhibitors currently hampering PC demand - such as low oil prices, exchange-rate fluctuations, and uncertainty due to the ongoing war against ISIS - are also impacting consumer confidence and are expected to persist for at least the next few quarters," says Charakla. "As a result, IDC has significantly downgraded its regional PC market forecast for 2016, although a recovery is predicted towards the end of 2016 and into 2017."
According to IDC's new forecast, 2016 will see mild growth in shipments, with a much bigger recovery expected in the year 2017. Looking further ahead, the years 2018 and 2019 will also experience mild shipment growth, stemming mainly from countries with low PC penetration rates, such as Pakistan, the 'Rest of the Middle East' grouping, Egypt, Nigeria, and certain other parts of Africa. As previously reported, there will continue to 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.