Southern Africa Desktop Market Sees Strong Growth in H1 2022 as Shipments of Tablets and Notebooks Decline

The Southern Africa personal computing device (PCD) market, which is made up of desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, experienced a year-on-year (YoY) decline of 3.7% in the first half of 2022, according to industry analysis conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC).

The global technology research and consulting firm’s latest Worldwide Quarterly PCD Tracker shows that 1.42 million units were shipped across the region in H1 2022.

“The market’s decline was caused by a reduction of shipments in Q2 as vendors had shipped high volumes during Q1 to meet previously unfulfilled backlog orders,” says Grace Munyi, a research analyst at IDC. “Additionally, the large tablet orders for educational use that had bolstered the market in H1 2021 declined this year.”

Consequently, tablets suffered the market’s sharpest decline, with shipments down 13.5% YoY in H1 2022. Notebook shipments declined 2.4% over the same period. However, the desktop market grew by 37.5% YoY, while workstation shipments increased 11.6%. Shipments of gaming devices also continued to grow year on year.

“The resumption of working from offices and the adoption of hybrid work models by corporates and businesses has led to a recovery in the desktop market, where shipments had declined over the last two years due to the pandemic,” says Munyi. “This trend is expected to continue throughout the year as the refresh cycle begins.”

In the PC category, HP Inc. led the way in H1 2022 with 23.8% unit share, outperforming Lenovo, which had been the market leader in the same period of 2021. Despite losing its position as the market’s frontrunner, Lenovo’s unit share increased by 0.6 of a percentage point year on year to reach 23.2%. Dell Technologies retained third position with 18.5% market share, up from 16.4% in H1 2021.

In the tablet category, Samsung continued to dominate the market in H1 2022. Lenovo placed second, while Vodacom and Apple retained their respective third and fourth positions.

“Looking ahead, IDC anticipates that the Southern Africa PCD market will continue to decline in the second half of 2022 as both consumer and commercial demand has reduced year on year,” says Munyi.