Shipments in EMEA contract 22.2 percent due to cautious channel replenishment and constrained spending.
Findings from International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Quarterly PC Tracker show that there was continued contraction in PC shipments to the region during the second quarter of 2013, with the firm attributing both high levels of inventory and slow consumer demand constraining new purchasing by channel partners to the 22.2 percent decline.
PC shipments reached 19.6 million units during the quarter, with portable PC shipments totalling 12.4 million – a decline of 26 percent – and desktops decreasing 14.6 percent to 7.2 million units. Western Europe’s 21.2 percent decline in shipments was as expected, with the UK seeing a decrease of 14 percent compared to Germany’s 18.7 percent decline, which was impacted by lessening consumer demand and retail caution. Shipments in France, meanwhile, declined 20.9 percent.
Southern Europe remained the most affected by difficult economic conditions, with Spain down 43.7 percent; while PC markets in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) posted declines of 27 percent and 18 percent respectively, which Stefania Lorenz, Associate Vice President, IDC CEMA Systems said “was even greater than IDC had forecast earlier”, noting that “the MEA region was affected by continual political instability and economic uncertainty, which influenced PC purchase decisions in both the public and private sectors. Consumer spending also contracted across the region, particularly in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and the UAE”.
The impact of mobile devices continues to be discussed, with Maciej Gornicki, Senior Research Analyst at IDC EMEA Personal Computing, commenting: “The evolution of form factors and the change in perception of mobile computing to ‘always on and always connected’ devices, development of social networks and Internet infrastructure, are all changing consumer behaviour, impacting the way PCs are utilized.”
Chrystelle Labesque, Research Manager for EMEA Personal Computing, said: “The PC market is going through a major transition with evolving form factors and a larger product portfolio, but the expansion of the overall client device market continues to drive increasing consumer spending and will also support key opportunities for the industry in the commercial space.”
In terms of vendors, HP maintained a strong lead in the EMEA region, while Lenovo continued to gain share, particularly in the consumer space, and remained the only vendor in the top ten to see growth. Acer, Dell and Asus took the third, fourth and fifth positions, with all seeing a decline in PC shipments, impacted by the decline in portable PC sales and mini notebooks, although Dell’s performance was above the overall market growth.
The Recycler recently reported on worldwide PC shipments falling 11.4 percent during 2Q13 compared to 2Q12, although this was less than anticipated, while US shipments were found to have stabilised.