More South Africans are opting for desktop PCs over notebooks and tablets

The recent COVID lockdowns had wide-ranging effects on how people work, communicate, and use technology. New data shows that some of those effects, like opting for notebooks and tablet devices, are giving way to the desktop computer’s return — at least in South Africa.

Market research firm International Data Corp (IDC) has released a new report showing that the desktop PC market is on the upswing in South Africa. At the same time, sales of tablets and notebooks have dropped. While that’s good news for desktop makers, the general computing market has dipped by 3.7% over last year.

Desktop destiny

According to the IDC, 1.42 million computing devices were shipped across South Africa in the first half of 2022. That number includes desktops, notebooks, workstations, and tablets, but it was portable devices that took the hit. The desktop PC market improved by 37.5% over 2022. Workstations saw an 11.6% increase. Notebooks experienced a small dip, of just 2.4%, while the tablet market shipped 13.5% fewer units than this time last year.

Part of this has to do with the ‘new normal’ not being so normal after all. More workplaces have gone back to the office or adopted hybrid techniques that make larger computers more attractive. There was also less demand for tablets from the education market since most kids are back at school.

“The resumption of working from offices and the adoption of hybrid work models by corporates and businesses has led to a recovery in the desktop market, where shipments had declined over the last two years due to the pandemic,” said IDC analyst Grace Munyi.

The IDC’s current rankings for PC manufacturers in South Africa are HP, with 23.8% of the market. It’s narrowly followed by Lenovo, which held the top spot this time last year. Dell and Asus are third and fourth respectively, followed by all the other brands sorta clumped together.

On the tablet vendor front, Samsung holds the lead in South Africa. It’s followed by Lenovo, Vodacom (of all companies), and then Apple. The rest make up the bulk of the tablet market in SA (46.7%), but no single company can dislodge the top four vendors.