Samsung continued to dominate the South Africa personal computing device market (PCD) market in the first half of 2022. Lenovo placed second, while Vodacom and Apple retained their respective third and fourth positions, according to a new report from IDC.
Apple now has 7.7% of the region’s tablet market compared to 6.4% in the first half of 2021. That compares to, in quarter two of 2022, 20.3% for Samsung, 12.5% for Lenovo, and 11.2% for Vodacom.
Overall, the Southern Africa 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 IDC. The research group says that 1.42 million units were shipped across the region in the first half of 2022.
“The market’s decline was caused by a reduction of shipments in quarter two as vendors had shipped high volumes during quarter one 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 the first half of 2021 declined this year.”
Consequently, tablets suffered the market’s sharpest decline, with shipments down 13.5% YoY in the first half of 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 the first half of 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.
Apple doesn’t place in the top five when it comes to desktop and laptop sales in South Africa.
