PC sales in Portugal grew 43.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021. HP maintains the leadership – Business
The effects of the pandemic still fit the computer market, which continues to grow not only globally, recording historic numbers, but also in the Portuguese market, where demand also remains high, according to joint figures by IDC. The past national computer market grew by 43.7% in the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to the same period last year. Still, the growth is further from the figures recorded for the fourth quarter of 2020 (100.4%) and the first quarter of 2021 (292.7%).
The market continues to be sold1 by HP, which sold 69,853 units in the fourth quarter, an increase of 136.8% over the previous year. Its market share is 39.8% in the period. Next is Lenovo, which also grew by triple digits to 17.9%, which increased the most, having sold 105,960 units. Its current market share is 24.8%. Closing the podium in the domestic market is Asus, which sold 26,123 units, a growth of 71.9%, with a current share of 6.1%.
In the list yet to be registered, HP recorded a decline in justification of 44.9% (25,221 units to the Government for Education), but that saw Lenovo and the sale in response to a segment, justified Francisco Jerónimo, vice president associate for IDC EMEA, interview with SAPO TEK. He also said that the education segment has slowed down, having registered only 55% growth compared to other areas.
On the other hand, a segment that is growing and accelerating is the public sector. Public Administration is a bettor on A notebooks. “There is a transition from desktops to notebooks, because State employees are also working from home or in a hybrid format”, explains Francisco Jerónimo.
But the exponential growth of HP and Lenovo, above 3 digits in the fourth quarter of the year, is mainly justified by the strong business demand, which grew a lot in this period. Whether through hybrid work or even telecommuting, companies have had to transition and respond with upgrades to their workers’ machines. “Companies tend to upgrade at scale, in cycles, not month-to-month purchases, and we’re getting into that.”
Dell appears in fifth place on the list, with a growth of 67.2%, with 24,940 units sold, having a market share of 5.8%.
In explaining the continuous growth of the national market, Francisco Jerónimo said that, despite having been higher last year, demand remained very high, but for different reasons. “There was no urgency to acquire equipment, but there was a concern to work from home and how they had to renew the machines for security reasons, to upgrade to Windows 11. that were sent”. He also explains that in this period the orders from the Government were materialized, which before had no material. “Looking at the last 10 years, there is a great demand that is still maintained” and as orders have not yet been fulfilled, high demand is forecast for the coming months.
Tablet sales plummet due to computer delivery
In contrast to the rise in computer sales in Portugal, the tablet market experienced a “tumbling” of 13.1%. Virtually all the Top 5 companies record company failures, except Lenovo and Microsoft. Lenovo sold 40.6% more (25,757) placing it in second place with 24.1% of the share. The company was the only one to record a year of strong growth, with emphasis on the first quarter of 2021, where it grew 498.6%. The following two quarters were above 3 digits, but it slowed down in the last quarter of 2021, still on a positive note.
Samsung continues to lead, but it’s the third straight quarter to lose sales. It registered a drop of 19.4% compared to the same period in the previous year, still selling almost twice as much as Lenovo, that is, 42,312 units, maintaining a share of 39.6%. Apple comes in third, selling 11,609 units, recording an 11.3% decline and a current market share of 10.9%.
TCL is the fourth manufacturer that sold the most tablets in Portugal, with 9,103 units, also representing a drop of 53.4% compared to the previous period. Finally, Microsoft saw growth of 36.7%, with the sale of 5,999 units, with 5.6% of the quota.
Francisco Jerónimo explains that last year, due to the inability of companies and people to buy computers, due to the lack of stock, tablets (with keyboard capacity) were the main alternatives. “But as the supply of PCs was made, interest in tablets dropped a lot. The same tablets were interesting, but to be manufactured”. Computers were delivered, driven like companies to stop looking for tablets.
Asked about the impact of the crisis of chips and other components for computers, Francisco Jerónimo says that manufacturers are recovering and that the current situation is better than last year. However, he says he will continue to generate stock problems this year. And because of that, the demand that remains high will generate more backlogs. The analyst says that the component crisis has been exacerbated by the sharing of components across different sectors, computers, smartphones, wearables, automobiles, etc.
Even tier capacity, all artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud and other technologies of server and compute requirements, as a consequence, require more machines and chipsets. “It’s not just the computers for the users, but also the entire backend that will suffer from the lack of components”.
In the future, as Europe’s initiatives to boost semiconductor production, “but that doesn’t happen overnight.” And he states that there is a need to reflect on whether demand will continue to be maintained in the coming years. “If not, we are talking about investments in thousands of dollars that then have to be millions directed to manufacture something else”, Francisco Jerónimo.