PC market has been growing quarter by quarter and according to the latest figures announced by IDC show the overall market grew 2.8 per cent year on year for the quarter, spurred primarily by shipments of portable PCs and the return to a semblance of stability in certain key markets across the region.
IDC’s data shows that portable PC shipments grew 4.3 per cent year on year in Q4 2014 to reach 2.83 million units, while desktop shipments experienced much flatter growth of 0.4 per cent over the same period to total 1.8 million units.
“One of the biggest surprises of the quarter came from Turkey, where PC vendors shipped significantly higher quantities than a year earlier in fear of anticipated changes to import duties from the start of 2015. However, the consequence of this was that channels exited the quarter with high levels of inventory, which will inevitably have a negative impact on shipment volumes in Q1 2015,” he added.
“In the longer term, IDC forecasts the PC market to remain almost flat from 2015 through to 2019,” continued Charakla. “However, the gradual shift of PC demand from consumers to the commercial segment is expected to gather pace. This is because a growing portion of home users will switch from PCs to tablets and smartphones, while commercial end users are expected to remain more loyal to the PC,” he concluded.
