DUBAI: Retailers in the UAE are relying on bundle offers to help lift sales of PCs that have been falling over the last year due to weaker consumer demand.
PC sales in the UAE have dropped by 8-12 per cent year-on-year in the last two quarters, said Nadeem Khanzadah, general manager and head of omnichannel retail at Jumbo Electronics.
The Middle East and Africa PC market saw a 13.3 per cent year-on-year decline in shipments in the second quarter of this year to reach 2.9 million units, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
Notebook shipments fell 11.4 per cent to touch 1.7 million units, while desktops’ decline was sharper, at 15.7 per cent to 1.2 million units. Globally, PC shipments declined 5.2 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2016 to 64.3 million units — the seventh consecutive quarter of PC shipment declines, according to a report from research company Gartner.
Consumers’ shift away from PCs to smartphones and tablets is the main reason for the drop in PC sales, according to retailers.
“The biggest [reason] is more content being consumed on smartphones … if it’s a quick browse, you can do it better on your phone because the screen size has become bigger … a lot of the kids have started taking tablets to their schools … so that has also changed the dynamics a little bit … PCs have actually suffered in all of this,” Khanzadah said at Gitex Shopper 2016 in Dubai on Saturday.
Pankaj Kumar, vice president of Sharaf DG in the UAE, said that the company has seen fall in PC sales this year of 8-10 per cent, while the UAE market has declined around 20 per cent. “There has been a saturation in the market as far as PCs are concerned.”
Srikant Gokhale, chief executive of consumer electronics retailer Emax, said the company has seen growth in PC sales year-on-year in the current financial year [which started July 2016], but not double-digit.
To entice consumers to buy PCs, retailers here are throwing in other products with PCs as part of a bundle offer.
“We are focusing on solution selling where we are combining PCs, laptops and tablets with a lot of accessories,” Gokhale said, adding that the company is also segmenting PCs by its usage to boost sales of the device.
Jumbo Electronics is offering an Acer i7 laptop for Dh3,399 along with a Dh400 gift voucher and Dh1,100 worth of free products, according to Khanzadah.
While overall PC sales are falling, there are categories that are doing better, such as gaming and 2 in 1 PCs, retailers say.
“The 2-in-1 notebooks are doing well. Those are growing at a rate of 25-30 per cent [in the last two to three quarters] over last year …[and] as the gaming market expands, there is demand for [gaming PCs],” Khanzadah said.
