Sales of mini PCs through Western Europe’s largest distributors continued to grow in the third quarter of 2017, even though demand in the desktop segment overall remained weak.
According to data published by European IT market research company Context, volume sales of mini PCs – typically defined as small form-factor PCs that take up very little desk space – were up by 18% year-on-year in Q3 2017, in a desktop market that declined by -7% over the same period.
As a result, mini PCs’ share of desktop sales was up by 6 percentage points, from 23% in Q3 2016 to 29% this year, making them the strongest form-factor category in the Desktop segment.
In the UK, the mini PC segment saw strong growth in the prior-year period and a significant year-on-year rise in prices, and both factors impacted the Q3 2017 volume performance.
“Mini PCs have enjoyed rising popularity in recent quarters because of improvements to their performance and space-saving design, and many PC vendors have increased their focus on the segment to leverage rising demand,” says Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context.
“In the distribution channel, the top three vendors in the segment are Lenovo, HP and Intel, and these companies posted year-on-year volume growth of 33%, 18% and 31%, respectively.”
