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African tablet sales take a big hit

Cape Town - Tablets are following the tanking computer market in the Middle East and Africa as the smart gadgets recorded their first ever decline in the region.

According to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), tablets in the region declined by 5.8% to 3.83 million units in the first three months of 2015.

"Currency fluctuations in Turkey, high inventory levels carried over from Q4 2014, and some saturation in the tablet market also had a negative impact on shipments targeted at the consumer segment," said Fouad Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC.

The decline follows a surprising downturn in the sale of PCs in the region attributed to similar currency fluctuations and inventory management issues.

PCs declined by 9.6%, driven mainly by currency fluctuations and lower resource prices.

While Samsung leads the tablet market, the South Korean manufacturer suffered a 5.5% drop to a total of 920 000 units. Apple's fortunes continued to sink as the iPad maker declined a dramatic 43% to just 430 000 units, and giving up its second place.

Winner

This is Apple's second successive decline after dropping 11% in the previous reporting period.

Lenovo was a winner among losers, posting a strong 96.4% growth rate to 920 000 devices and taking over Apple's second place position.

That jump in sales has seen revenue from PCs decline to 63% from 83% at Lenovo as the company pivots toward tablets and smartphones.

Apple has seen tablet market share erosion in the Middle East and Africa. (Duncan Alfreds, Fin24)

Despite the slowdown in tablet sales for the first quarter, IDC said that for the full year, tablet sales will grow at 5.8%, though this is far below the previous growth rate of 41.6% in 2014.

"The reduction in global oil prices has caused a slowdown in government-driven initiatives in some of the region's oil-producing countries, negatively impacting demand for tablet devices," said Charakla.

Charakla added that the slowdown in government spending was also having a depressing impact in consumer spending of tablets.

"The decline in government spending has also had a ripple effect on other sectors across the region, and has also impacted demand from the consumer segment."


- Follow Duncan on Twitter

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