Commercial PC market continues to generate sales growth
An analysis of the first couple of months of Q2 from Context has indicated that the commercial customer base is continuing to spend on PCs
The commercial market continues to support the PC market with the consumer side still in the doldrums according to figures that have come from distributors.
Numbers covering the first two months of Q2 from Context, showed that across Western Europe the numbers of PCs sold through distribution increased by 6% year-on-year.
Volume sales of commercial PCs were up by 13% continuing on the positive momentum that had been established in Q1. All of the product categories experienced growth, with notebooks up by 15%, desktops 8%, workstations by 18%.
Ultra-thin mobiles helped the laptop segment deliver one of its better performances and on the desktop front mini PCs seem to be the current form factor of choice.
Consumer PCs though continued to suffer weakness and sales were down 3% year-on-year in April and May. That side of the market has been operating in a tough climate for a few years now.
"Demand for traditional mainstream PCs remained soft, and growth in some segments, including ultra-thin mobiles, gaming desktops and Chromebooks, was too small to reverse the overall trend”, said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at Context. “This pattern is expected to continue throughout 2018.”
The ongoing migration by commercial users towards Windows 10 continued and upgrading of old machines were also trends that gave the analyst house the confidence to talk about continuing strength in the corporate space.
Country wise the UK was one of the best performing with 21% growth. Ireland and the Netherlands also came in with 24.6% and 24.5% growth respectively. Resellers in France would have been the ones moaning with the country delivering a 0.4% drop in sales.
The commercial market has been the lifeline for the PC market now for the last 18 months and has given those selling the hardware the ongoing hope that there is still plenty of mileage left in the Windows 10 migrations.
Last year there was a regular refrain from hardware vendors that the end of 2017 and the first half of 2018 would be when more enterprises made the move to fresh Windows 10 running hardware.
