How the UK's notebook market outperformed Europe since the Covid crisis began

Data provided by Context gives a month-by-month analysis of how the UK market outpaced the rest of Europe

Notebook sales in the UK and Ireland vastly outpaced the rest of Europe throughout the Covid crisis, data from channel analyst Context shows.

Month-by-month data from Context, shared exclusively with CRN, reveals that notebook sales were roughly 90 per cent higher year-on-year in March 2020 and January 2021 in parallel to when national lockdowns began in the UK.

During March 2020, UK sales surged to 85 per cent above levels from the same month in 2019, compared to Europe as a whole which only logged a 25 per cent increase in sales during the month.

It's a similar story for January 2021 when the UK and other major European economies entered another lockdown period. UK sales for this month were around 90 per cent higher than the same month in 2019, compared to around 30 per cent in Europe.

See the chart provided by Context for a month-by-month breakdown of how UK notebook sales compared with the rest of Europe between January 2020 and March 2021.

Sales growth began to slow between April and July 2020 as the initial spike in demand in March began to subside and the economy began to reopen during the summer.

But UK notebook demand began to climb again during August and hit a new peak in January as the UK entered another wave of lockdowns. Sales growth began to fall steeply during February and March 2021 but were still 40 per cent and 23 per cent above 2019 levels respectively.

UK notebook sales even continued to outperform 2019 levels in the run up to Christmas, which is usually a strong month for the notebook market.

The UK shipped more PCs to schools than any other European country during national lockdowns, Context claims, and accounted for nearly two-fifths (36 per cent) of all laptops shipped to schools during 2020.

UK resellers such as Computacenter haveplayed a huge role in the Department of Education's Get Help With Technology programme. The Hatfield-based firm procured around 850,000 out of the one million devices required as part of the programme.

The severity of the Covid crisis in the UK, which has endured several months in national lockdown and recorded far more Covid deaths than any other European country, could also be a factor as to why the country has seen a greater spike in notebook sales than the rest of Europe to aid remote working.