PC market stabilises in EMEA in Q4, but Brexit bites in UK

Strong demand from the commercial segment across western Europe

The EMEA PC market stabilised in Q4, declining only 0.2 per cent annually, thanks to strong demand in the commercial space and a Chromebooks boom. But the Brexit vote caused a headache in the UK, prompting the local PC market to slump 6.2 per cent year on year.

Figures from IDC show that in the final quarter of 2016, total PC shipments in EMEA reached 20.7 million, down 0.2 per cent year on year. Notebooks performed well in the region, up 2.9 per cent, and "strong demand" was triggered in the commercial space, which grew 10.1 per cent.

For the whole of 2016, PC shipments fell 6.1 per cent to 71.6 million units, said IDC, adding that Windows 10 "did not drive extensive renewals". However, Chromebooks - especially in the education sector - led to "strong demand for notebooks" in the second half.

Although the whole EMEA region performed well in Q4, the same could not be said for the UK.

"As the pound has become a turbulent currency following [the] Brexit [vote] in the UK, the British traditional PC market was impacted negatively, down 6.2 per cent," said IDC.

"The western European PC market performed better than expected in 2016's Q4, thanks to notebooks in both the consumer and commercial segments," said Malini Paul, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. "While promotions around Black Friday and the post-Christmas period supported the strong seasonality of the holiday period, fulfilling backlogs from 2016's Q3 due to component shortages also contributed to the sell-in uptake in the consumer space."