Australia's PC Market Posts Growth in 2017Q4, Driven by Strong Demand in the Education Segment

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Traditional PC shipments in Australia (including desktops, notebooks, and workstations) totalled 1.16M units in the fourth quarter of 2017, posting a year-over-year (YoY) growth of 2.2% according to International Data Corporation's (IDC) Quarterly Personal Computing Devices Tracker. This was slightly higher than the worldwide PC market's growth of 0.5% YoY.

The overall market was driven by major education deployments, including public and private schools, resulting in growth of the education segment by 56.6% YoY. HP Inc. and Acer, which had dominated the education segment until recently, faced renewed competition from Lenovo this year, which grabbed 22.7% share in this segment, compared to 11.5% same time last year. The government and enterprise sectors posted growth rates of 11.5% and 2.3% YoY respectively, while SMBs declined by 23.7% YoY, despite the federal government tax benefits. “The small and medium business segment continues to sweat assets after the Windows 10 free OS update; the option of having a flexible device refresh rate, unlike global enterprise accounts that mostly have a fixed refresh rate, is impacting the SMB segment”, noted Sagar Raghavendra, Client Devices Analyst, IDC Australia.

The consumer segment was relatively flat year on year. “Hype around Amazon Australia, which launched in December, did little to improve consumer spending; the market, however, did well in the gaming segment, with AMD’s Ryzen continuing to do well in the white-box category” added Raghavendra.

The Notebook PC market grew by 2.3% YoY. “Chromebooks grew by 67.2% YoY, the majority of which came from the education segment. The uptake of Chromebooks is expected to increase in 2018,” noted Raghavendra. “The market also continues to shift to higher price bands as convertible and ultra slim form factors take over from traditional notebooks”. Desktop PCs grew by 0.7% YoY, driven by the gaming enthusiast segment.

 HP Inc., Lenovo and Apple held the top three positions, with 28.4%, 16.6% and 16.3% shares respectively, followed by Dell Inc. and Acer Group with 15.2% and 11.5% respectively. No significant change in share percentage was noticed except for Lenovo and Apple switching positions compared to 4Q16.

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International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company.