The establishment of new offices as a result of Qatar’s ongoing construction boom could help pull up declining sales of desktop and personal computers (PCs) in the country, operators of a number of PC stores told Gulf Times.
A supervisor of a popular PC store said the country had seen a decline in the PC space since 2011 as sales slipped due to changing market factors and consumer demand and preference.
According to global technology research and consulting firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market suffered a sharp year-on-year (y-o-y) decline of 25.6% in the second quarter of this year, marking it as steepest decline ever recorded in the region for a single quarter.
It also said overall PC shipments for the quarter fell to 3.3mn units. Desktops were down 21.2% y-o-y to 1.4mn units, while the notebook segment declined 28.6% to total 1.9mn units.
Another supervisor said stores in Qatar had benefited from bulk orders placed by offices and schools. He noted, however, that schools were slowly shifting technology-based instruction from PCs to tablets.
“Rather than from walk-in customers, PC stores in Qatar benefit mostly from bulk orders of offices. But as long as there are new offices being set up, this will help sustain PC sales in Qatar,” he said.
Fouad Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said: “Two of the biggest declines were seen in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East region (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan and Palestine).”
Charakla added: “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 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.”
In the longer run, IDC expects the MEA PC market to experience a partial recovery in 2016, with shipments tipped to grow 10% y-o-y during those 12 months. The following years are forecast to remain close to flat in terms of shipment growth, it pointed out.
However, IDC also said there would 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 2017, IDC added.
