PCs Shine in Q4 2014 but Tablets Slump Thanks to Poor Android Performance

LONDON - Jan. 27, 2015 - PRLog -- London - PC sales across Western European distribution showed solid growth of almost 20% in the final three months of 2014 driven by strong performance in the consumer and notebook space, but there was no pre-Christmas surge for tablets which slumped to a loss in the quarter, according to the latest statistics from CONTEXT.

The market analyst’s figures for year-on-year unit growth in distribution across the region revealed PC growth of 19.9% - not quite the 20%+ of previous quarters but a big improvement on the same time last year, when the figure was down at -3.3%.

CONTEXT observes that consumers and notebooks are driving the resurgence in demand for PCs and the numbers bear this out. The consumer segment grew 23.9% in Q4 as opposed to business growth of 14.9%, while notebooks made similarly good progress (23.4%) compared to more conservative 10.9% growth on the desktop side.

Business PC sales are performing well but have noticeably slowed from the past two quarters as the Windows XP migration effect begins to tail off. Notebook sales are beginning to drive growth in this segment now as opposed to desktops, CONTEXT said.

On the consumer side, the impressive 23.9% growth came thanks to a home PC replacement push and efforts to promote cheap, low-end notebook systems, although growth in the segment was also based on a decline last year, according to CONTEXT.

“The push in budget consumer Notebooks that we saw in Q3 2014 intensified in the run up to Christmas”, said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT. “Partly down to systems based on Windows with Bing, consumers were able to choose from a wide range of low-end clamshell Notebooks at very competitive prices. As a result, 27.4% of consumer clamshell notebooks are in the sub-€250 category versus just 8.3% in Q4 2013.”

Convertibles and 2-in-1 notebooks are also becoming increasingly popular amongst consumers, accounting for a combined 10.2% of the consumer Notebook category versus 4.6% the same time last year.

But it was a bad end to 2014 for the tablet market, which last year saw a pre-Christmas rush driven by low-end Android devices. Total unit sales declined by 9.2% year-on-year in Q4 2014, compared to a 38% increase the year previous.

CONTEXT blamed the poor performance on Android devices and longer than expected tablet replacement cycles.

In fact, while Android tablet sales slumped 21.9%% in Q4, iPad sales showed small growth of 4.5%.

Meanwhile, Windows 8/8.1 Slate tablets grew, although this was from a small base and focused on low-end consumer systems, but still managed to register a respectable share of overall slate tables in Q4/2014 of 6.1% compared to 1% a year ago.

Country split - PC Q414 year-on-year unit growth figures:
Czech Republic: +20%
Denmark: 9.1%
France: 26.4%
Germany: 13.8%
Italy: 15.4%
Netherlands: 31.6%
Poland +3.6%
Spain: 40.9%
Sweden: 11.3%
Switzerland: -1.9%
UK: 24.8%

About CONTEXT
Headquartered in London with over 200 staff in 15 countries, CONTEXT specialises in tracking technology sales and pricing across the globe. Supported by the largest Distribution Channel Sales Database in the world, CONTEXT tracks Channel sales in most countries across EMEA where we are the official data partners with all members of the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC). CONTEXT reports and services enable our customers to assess their business operations in the light of actual sell out figures, and make business critical decisions based on hard data. Follow us on Twitter: @contextworld.com or visit our website: www.contextworld.com