The Middle East and Africa (MEA) PC market reported year-on-year growth of 4.8 percent during the second quarter of 2012, according to preliminary results from International Data Corporation (IDC). Growth in the regional PC market was primarily driven by the desktop form-factor, which grew 7.2 percent year-on-year to reach a total of 2.2 million units. Notebook shipments, on the other hand, grew at a relatively slower pace of 3.3 percent year-on-year, arriving at a total of 3.2 million units for the region. Worst of all, moving forward from Q2 2012, some vendors have been left with high inventory levels among their channels. “The slowdown in demand was experienced mainly due to a number of factors, including the cannibalization of PC demand by media tablets, especially in the larger markets, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey,” said Fouad Rafiq Charakla, a research manager at IDC MEA. “At the same time, political instability also played a key role in slowing down demand in other parts of the region.” HP is still the number one vendor in the region, followed in order by Dell and Acer. Investing aggressively in the overall region, Chinese vendor Lenovo attained substantial year-on-year growth of 40.5 percent to climb to fourth place in the MEA PC market.
