Australian PC Market Driven by Consumer Segment

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Q115 saw end users migrating back to notebooks from tablet form factors. Convertible notebooks, which allow multipurpose usability, were especially popular.

Continuing the growth trend from the Windows XP migration since late 2014, the PC market had a good start in 2015, improving 12% year-on-year (YoY) thanks to healthy notebooks sales. 

“The currency fluctuation impact on PC sales was minimal as vendors initiated aggressive price promotion campaigns and pushed large volumes of entry-level devices into the market. Microsoft’s BingBook program was also a contributing factor to higher notebook shipments”, says Sagar Raghavendra, Client Devices Analyst, IDC.

HP maintains the top position with 23% market share, followed by Apple and Lenovo with 20% and 13% respectively. Lenovo’s foray into the consumer space in Q4 last year has reaped benefits as evidenced by its exponential growth in this segment.

While the consumer segment grew 20% YoY, the education segment was on the decline. "The slowdown in education shipments was likely due to the changing 'Bring Your Own Device' (BYOD) policy. With product purchases now decentralized in several private education institutions, parents, not schools, are buying notebooks for their children,” adds Sagar Raghavendra. The enterprise segment posted mixed results with large and very large enterprise shipment declining as part of OPEX cost-cutting. However SMBs, riding on promotional offers, posted steady year-on-year growth.