Dubai: The PC market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is expected to witness a year-on-year five per cent fall in the third quarter to 2.9 million units due to a significant slowdown in consumer demand, caused primarily by the ongoing shift away from computers towards tablets and smartphones.

While this is a continuation of a long-running tend, the overall decline seen in the second quarter was the slowest in the past five quarters. When segmenting the market, notebook shipments fell 11.4 per cent to total 1.7 million units, while desktops suffered a sharper decline of 15.7 per cent to total 1.2 million units.

“The speed of the market’s slump was slowed by the growth seen in countries such as Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia,” said Fouad R. Charakla, senior research manager at International Data Corporation (IDC).

He said that some key markets experienced significant declines, with Nigeria’s shipments suffering the biggest fall at 63.4 per cent year on year, while the Saudi PC market almost halved in size.

Other key markets to experience notable declines included the rest of Middle East subregion (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and Afghanistan) and the smaller Gulf markets (Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar).

Charakla said that the UAE market did not suffer much compared to other markets.

“The reasons for these declines vary from country to country but include political instability, currency issues and fluctuations, security concerns, low oil prices, and high levels of inflation,” he said.

He said that the shift to mobile devices is particularly pronounced in the consumer segment, although home users continued to account for the majority of PC demand in the region.

HP, Lenovo, and Dell accounted for over 60 per cent of overall PC market share in the second quarter of this year, and over 70 per cent of demand stemming from the commercial segment.

“Toshiba has all but exited the region’s PC market, with the vendor recording only a few shipments in just one country during the quarter.

HP once again regained its leadership position by a significant margin despite losing market share in the first quarter.

Lenovo retained its position at number two, dominating the consumer segment with its strong presence in the retail space. Dell ranked third, experiencing notable growth within both the corporate and SMB (small and medium business) segments, while fourth-placed Asus was the only player among the top five to increase its shipments year on year.

Acer suffered the sharpest decline of the leading vendors, after suffering intense competition in the consumer space.

Demand in the regional PC market will continue to be inhibited by a variety of factors over the coming quarters, he said, but added that the market will decline at a slower rate than previously experienced.

For the whole year, he said that the market will witness a 12.95 per cent fall in shipments to 12.1 million compared to 13.9 million units in 2015.

“Post 2016, the regional PC market will likely return to a slow growth trend as PC penetration in certain parts of the region is still relatively low and we expect IT adoption in general to continue increasing steadily,” he said.