Southern Africa personal computers hit highest shipments in 5 years

Southern Africa’s personal computing devices (PCD) market, which comprises desktops, notebooks, workstations and tablets, recorded year-on-year (YoY) growth of 44.4% in Q3 2021, according to the latest insights from International Data Corporation (IDC). The global technology research and consulting firm’s Quarterly PCD Tracker reveals that shipments in the market reached over 920,000 in Q3 2021, the highest volume recorded in almost five years.

“Despite the continued global stock supply challenges caused by a shortage of components and chipsets, the Southern Africa PCD market recorded a strong performance during the quarter,” says Grace Munyi, a research analyst at IDC. “A huge backlog orders and rising adoption of education technologies to support online learning were the key commercial growth drivers, while retail sales spurred consumer growth. Demand remained high across the region but vendors were unable to fully meet it, so they prioritized the supply of devices to commercial end users.”

Looking at the performance of different types of devices, workstations recorded the market’s highest YoY growth, with shipments up 103.2% in Q3 2021. Notebook shipments increased 89.1% over the same period, while desktop shipments were up 65.2%. Tablet shipments declined 10.8% but shipments of gaming devices continued to grow year on year.

In the PC category, HP remains the dominant player in the Southern Africa market, accounting for 27.9% of total PC shipments in Q3 2021, up from 24.8% a year earlier. Local brand, Proline moved up to second place with 18.8% share, a significant increase on the 1.3% share it gained in Q3 2020. This strong performance by Proline was driven by the massive notebook volumes it delivered for phase two of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) education deal in South Africa.

Lenovo, which saw its share decline 8.3 percentage points to 15.3%, slipped from second to third in Q3 2021, with Dell Technologies falling to fourth place despite recording a slight YoY increase in its share.

In the tablet category, Samsung continued to dominate the market in Q3 2021. Apple moved up from third to second, while Lenovo went the other way after seeing its share decline by 4.1 percentage points.