Dubai: The Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market suffered a sharp year-on-year decline of 25.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year, marking it as the steepest decline ever recorded in the region for a single quarter, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).

The latest market insights from IDC show that overall PC shipments for the quarter fell to 3.3 million units. Desktops were down 21.2 per cent year-on-year to 1.4 million units, while the notebook segment declined 28.6 per cent to total 1.9 million units.

“Two of the biggest declines were seen in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East region [Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Palestine],” Fouad R. Charakla, research manager at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said.

“Both these territories carried over high inventory levels from the previous quarter as a result of a slowdown in demand. This factor was an inhibitor of PC shipments in other parts of the region as well, including [in] the UAE. Currency fluctuations also had a negative impact on supply and demand in several key markets across the region. In the UAE, a slowdown in tourism spending — primarily from Russia and Europe — continued to inhibit PC demand.”

The top three vendor positions remained unchanged from the last few quarters, with each of the leading vendors suffering significant year-on-year declines in their shipments to the region.

HP continued to lead in terms of market share, but saw its shipments fall 26 per cent year on year. Second-placed Lenovo suffered a 19 per cent decline, third-placed Dell posted a downturn of 10.3 per cent, and fourth-placed Acer recorded a decrease of 29.3 per cent, while Asus maintained its position at number five, but experienced a decline of 26.7 per cent.

Once again, local desktop assemblers suffered significantly in comparison to the previous year as demand for their devices continues to be cannibalised by the growing availability of refurbished PCs.

This year, as a whole, is expected to be the region’s worst-ever performance, with overall PC shipments for the year set to fall 15.7 per cent year-on-year to total 15.2 million units. “Currency fluctuations both inside and outside the MEA [Middle East, Africa] region will remain largely responsible for the slower demand, particularly in key markets such as Turkey and Nigeria,” Charakla said. “Low oil prices are also impacting those countries whose budgets rely strongly on oil revenues, ratcheting up the pressure on governments to control their spending. At the same time, the cannibalisation of PC demand by tablets and smartphones continues to hamper the market’s performance.”

In the longer run, IDC expects the MEA PC market to experience a partial recovery in 2016, with shipments tipped to grow 10 per cent year on year during those 12 months.

The following years are forecast to remain close to flat in terms of shipment growth. However, as previously reported, there will be a gradual shift in the weight of demand from consumers to the commercial segment as a growing proportion of home users switch from PCs to tablets and smartphones, and commercial end users maintain their loyalty to PCs. As a result, commercial demand for PCs in the region is expected to surpass that from home users by the year 2017.