Business Uncertainty Leads to Decline in EMEA Personal Workstation Shipments

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Personal workstation shipments to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) declined sharply in 2H22, but the market is expected to rebound solidly by the end of this year as demand reheats, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC’s EMEA Quarterly Workstation Tracker reports that unit shipments grew 26.8% year on year in 1H22 but plunged 15.8% in 2H22 amid widespread business uncertainty.

IDC forecasts that the downturn will continue through 1H23, with the market falling 21% year on year. But a return to expansion is anticipated in 2H23, with 17% growth predicted for Q4 and 21.3% growth expected during 2024.

“The uncertainty surrounding the advent of war in Europe, energy crises, and inflation weighed heavily on corporate hardware investment choices and negatively impacted demand,” said Mohamed Hefny, a senior program manager for IDC EMEA Systems & Infrastructure Solutions.

Hefny said the return to growth will be driven mainly by the need to replace older workstations. “Maintenance and support contracts cannot postpone the refreshment cycle of aging workstations by another year,” he said.

Growth will also be driven by increased use of mobile workstations linked to the rise in work-from-home policies, as well as continued migrations to Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Demand will also be fueled by upgrades of midrange and high-end ISV-certified desktop workstations, which will include features like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 to speed up the development of emerging technologies like AI and machine learning.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Workstation Tracker enables users to better understand the dynamics of the rapidly changing workstation market. It provides clients with a quantitative measure of the market and how particular vendors are performing within the space. Through in-depth analysis, users can quickly get answers to important product planning and positioning questions.