Laptops lead EMEA sales revival, but Brexit-blown Blighty misses out
So says market-watcher IDC in its new Personal Computing Device Tracker for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for the first quarter of 2017.
Notebook PC sales grew by 11.7 per cent to lead the surge to 17,400,000 overall sales, about 270,000 or 1.6 per cent more than sold in 2016’s corresponding quarter. That’s not huge growth but given the PC market’s long decline any black ink is welcome. It’s also a good result given that the Middle East and Africa market for old-school PCs without detachable touch screens continued to experience sales dips, down by 6.2 per cent year on year.
But the news isn’t all good because IDC says the sales spurt can be attributed in part to component shortages that meant orders could not be fulfilled in late 2016. IDC says the channel has now stocked up on PCs to avoid future component price rises and keep PC prices pleasant. Exchange rates will help those efforts as a weaker US dollar has made it possible for European buyers to splash on new PCs without denting their pocket-books.The analyst firm also notes that the UK did not enjoy currency-related PC-buying advantages.
Here’s the tale of the tape for the top five PC vendors, counting kit other than tablets and two-in-one typoslab PCs. Numbers represent hundreds of thousands.
IDC says those sales took place across all segments: businesses, punters, gamers and educators all reached into their pockets during the quarter.
HP Inc did well with consumers, as you’d expect given its recent emphasis on stylish kit. Lenovo and Dell duked it out for the commercial notebook market. Acer’s result reflects a bad Q1 2016, rather than a startling result this year. ®
