According to the latest insights from IDC, The Middle East and Africa (MEA) personal computing devices (PCD) market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, declined 7.7% year on year in Q2 2018 and the shipments fell to around 5.4 million units for the three-month period, representing the lowest quarterly volume recorded for more than seven years.
“While this marks a considerable decline for the overall market, the PC segment actually performed well, with desktops experiencing strong growth and notebooks experiencing only a small decline,” explains Fouad Charakla, IDC’s senior research manager for client devices in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
“However, there was a much more significant decline in tablet shipments, and only the aggressive distribution push of certain Far-Eastern players prevented an even steeper decline.”The biggest decline in PCD shipments was seen in the ‘Rest of Middle East’ group of countries (which comprises Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Palestine). “Iran accounted for the largest chunk of this decline, with the country’s worsening economic situation further weakening the local currency, which in turn caused shipments into the country to become more expensive and demand to decline,” says Charakla.
“The MEA region’s largest single market, Turkey, experienced something similar, with the country’s currency weakeing to new lows against the U.S. Dollar, causing a significant increase in the cost of imported devices and a corresponding decline in demand.”
In stark contrast, South Africa experienced strong year-on-year growth in PCD shipments after the rand reached one of its highest levels against the US dollar in recent times. “Market players operating in the country continued to take advantage of this opportunity throughout Q2 2018, with imported PCs costing far less than previously for both local channels and end users,” says Charakla. “Other countries that saw strong year-on-year growth for the quarter were Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, and Lebanon.”
