Second quarter shipments continue to slow as mobile devices gain share.
IDC has reported that the volume of PC shipments in Russia during 2Q13 fell by 37.3 percent year-on-year to a total of 2.47 million units; with the notebook market contracting 45.3 percent year-on-year to 1.69 million units and the desktop market down 8.2 percent to 785,000 units.
Natalia Vinogradova, Research Analyst at IDC Russia, commented: “The second quarter continued to be impacted by large inventory volumes in the market, as most vendors, retailers, and distributors focused on stock reduction. The increasing shift in demand for tablets and smartphones is also a key factor in the slowdown of the portable PC market, as well as continued economic pressures in the business sector.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s tablet market grew by 156 percent year-on-year, reaching 1.96 million units in the same quarter. “This growth mainly stemmed from the home segment, fuelled by the availability of a large variety of low-cost tablets;” added Vinogradova. “Android tablets will post a significant increase in market share in 2013, thanks to the increasing number of tablets using Android OS priced at $100 (€74.89) and less.”
IDC expects the market will continue to shift from traditional notebooks and tablets until 2017; with the tablet market due to total 7.68 million units by the end of this year compared to 6.87 million notebooks. The shift will become more evident by the end of 2014, with 9.24 million tablets expected to be shipped compared to 6.98 million notebooks.
Traditional PC vendors were initially banking on the Windows 8 platform to grow their market share of tablets, but are now also pushing their Android devices at competitive prices to gain market share from low-cost tablet vendors; with Simon Barker, Program Manager for mobile handsets at IDC, explaining: “Android rules the roost among smartphone operating systems in Russia. It is installed on close to three-quarters of all smartphones sold here, and, when purchasing a new tablet, many consumers are keen to have the same OS on both.”