Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) continued to struggle with falling PC shipments in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) in the third quarter as the two companies worked to reduce their inventory.
According to a report on Friday by research firm International Data Corp (IDC), PC shipments in the EMEA region declined 23 percent year-on-year to 18.4 million units in the July-to-September quarter.
INSTABILITY
The market was weakened by ongoing currency fluctuations that affected a number of nations, and by political instability in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, IDC said.
Channel players across the region focused on reducing their inventory of Microsoft Corp’s Bing program that was designed to promote low-cost Windows 8 computers, in preparation for shipments of new products for the holiday season in the fourth quarter, IDC said.
WINDOWS 10
Although shipments of Windows 10 machines started to increase last month, demand for the new devices did not pick up significantly due to a free upgrade offered by Microsoft, which prompted retailers to focus on selling the Windows 8 products in stock, IDC added.
All of the top five PC vendors in the EMEA region posted a decline in shipments amid these difficult market conditions, with the top three players — Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) and Dell Inc — recording annualized shipment declines of 17.1 percent, 20.1 percent and 11.3 percent respectively.
Acer is ranked fourth in the market, but its PC shipments fell 38 percent year-on-year, while Asustek, in fifth position, saw a 25.5 percent decrease in shipments, IDC’s data showed.
IDC said that Acer was focused on stock clearance during the third quarter to create space for new products for the year-end holiday season, hoping that its efforts would lead to good results in the Windows 10 device segment.
CAUTIOUS SHIPMENTS
Asustek’s efforts to reduce its inventory also led to its cautious shipments to distributors and a consequent decline in the company’s total shipments, IDC said.
By market share, HP remained the biggest player in the EMEA region with a 23.7 percent share, followed by Lenovo with 20.1 percent, Dell with 10.1 percent, Acer with 9.6 percent and Asustek with 8.2 percent, according to IDC.
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