Poor consumer demand drives Southern Africa PC market down

Southern Africa’s personal computing device (PCD) market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, declined 21,4% year on year in the first half of 2023, according to the industry analysis by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The newly updated Worldwide Quarterly PCD Tracker shows that shipments across the region totaled 1,1-million units in H1 2023.

“There was a general slowdown in shipments as consumer demand fell due to economic factors such as rising interest rates, food inflation, fuel prices, and load shedding, all of which negatively impacted end-user disposable income,” says Grace Munyi, research analyst at IDC.

The tablet market experienced the highest pressure in the first half of the year, with shipments declining 31,5% year on year.

This was followed by the notebook segment, where shipments were down 17,8% over the same period.

Desktops and workstations recorded modest declines of 7% each.

From a product category perspective, HP Inc maintained its leading position in the PC segment with 26,1% share, up 2,3 percentage points on H1 2022.

Dell Technologies followed with 18,9% share, pushing Lenovo down into third place with 17,8% share. Rounding out the top four, Asus saw its share increase year on year to 15%.

In the tablet category, Samsung continued to lead the way. TCL claimed the second place formerly held by Lenovo, while Apple followed in third.