Vendors were seen shipping a growing volume of notebooks carrying Microsoft’s ‘Bing’ internet search solution to the region, but despite being aggressively priced at around $300, there wasn’t much demand for these devices during the quarter.
“The market overcame ongoing instability in certain parts of the region to maintain its state of growth in Q3 2014,” says Fouad Rafiq Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.
HP continued to lead in terms of market share, posting year-on-year unit growth of 14.4% for the quarter. Second-placed Lenovo continued to benefit from strong consumer demand and was again the fastest growing major PC vendor in the region, increasing its shipments 58.2% year on year. Third-ranked Dell recorded 23.0% year-on-year growth, with one of the previously mentioned education deals in Pakistan serving as a major driver for the vendor.
