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Demand for IT products is declining in the Middle East and Africa

The region’s PC market is still performing better than it did before the pandemic.

Demand for IT products is declining in the Middle East and Africa
[Source photo: Anvita Gupta/Fast Company Middle East]

With inflation having taken its toll on almost every sector of the economy, it isn’t surprising that the personal computing devices (PCD) market has also started showing dwindling demand for IT products. 

According to International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts, the PCD market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, which mainly comprises desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, is expected to fall 16.1% year-on-year in unit terms for the third quarter of 2022. 

In its latest Worldwide Quarterly PCD Tracker, the tech research and consulting giant has forecasted that a total of 5.2 million units will be shipped across the region in Q3 2022.

“The biggest declines are expected in South Africa and Egypt, where massive projects delivered in Q3 2021 are not expected to repeat in Q3 2022,” says Fouad Charakla, IDC’s associate research director for client devices in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. 

Due to higher living costs, consumer demand continues to be subpar, negatively impacting businesses and thereby dropping the commercial market for PCDs. 

But all is not grim yet; the region’s PC market is still charging forward at full throttle, performing better than before the pandemic. 

“IDC expects PC shipments to total 14.6 million units for 2022 as a whole, and while this is down from 15.1 million units in 2021, it is up considerably on the 11.5 million units shipped in 2019.”

“The market will contract slightly in 2023 and then start to recover again from 2024 onwards. However, tablet shipments for 2022 will be significantly weaker than pre-pandemic levels and will continue to weaken over the subsequent years,” says Charakla.

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