Dubai: Dell and Acer are seeing a growth in gaming, two-in-ones [detachables] and convertible [a computer that can be switched to a tablet style by folding] laptops in the UAE despite a fall in overall PC sales.
Daniel Trachino, General Manager at Acer MENA, said that total market declined last year by 17 per cent but some categories such as gaming, detachables and convertibles have shown strong growth.
However, he said the growth in these categories is not able to compensate for the overall decline in the regular notebooks.
The story is different for Acer in the UAE, he said, adding Acer has gained more than four percentage points to garner more than 19 per cent market share in retail sell out.
“Furthermore, we’re confident that the market will stabilise this year. Indeed when we take the last three-month trend, as per research firm GfK, the market is even showing a growth in the retail [sector] of 2 per cent,” he said.
He said that the last three months’ trend is much better than the 2016 results.
“We’re hoping that the clamshell notebooks will stabilise in retail and that the other categories will continue to growth, especially gaming and two-in-one categories,” he said.
According to research firm International Data Corporation, the PC shipments in the UAE are expected to fall 2.1 per cent to 352,071 units in the first quarter of this year compared to 359,680 units a year ago.
“We saw towards the end of last year a pickup in demand. We have seen a small growth in year-on-year [figures] in the PC segment. In the gaming segment, we have seen consumers buying entry to mid-level laptops that are affordable,” said Rajat Rallan, Cycle Strategist (Consumer) — MEA, Brand and Category Management at Dell.
He said that people used to buy regular i7 laptops and game with them earlier, but now consumers are ready to pay a little more and go for laptops made especially for gaming segment.
Dell registered around 20 per cent growth in gaming machines in the UAE last year.
Rallan said that the demand is more for entry-level gaming and that that is where the increase is happening. The high-end gaming market is pretty stable.
The games machines are priced from Dh4,500 to more than Dh20,000.
Even though the convertibles and gaming laptops are growing, Fouad R. Charakla, research manager at IDC, said that it [gaming and convertible laptops] still contributes a small portion of the overall sales.
In the first quarter of last year, he said the convertible laptops contributed around 3 per cent of the overall sales but it is expected to grow to around 5 per cent of the total sales in the first quarter of this year.
Dell is showcasing its high-end 17-inch Alienware and entry-level Inspiron gaming laptops.
Trachino said that the UAE gaming market is still small but it is showing some growth in 2017, with more than 15 per cent growth.
“We introduced in the beginning of 2016 our new Predator line-up, which is covering the hard-core gamers segment (Dh7,000 plus). In 2016, we reached the second position in the notebooks gaming segment with 24 per cent of market share and the number two position as well in desktop gaming with 30 per cent market share,” he said.
This year, he said that Acer wants to be number one, especially with the introduction of the new VX15 which will complete our Predators line-up, priced between Dh4,000 and Dh5,500.
In addition to the entry level, he said that Acer is going to launch in the next few days its new Predator 21X, a 21.5-inch gaming laptop for Dh36,999.
