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nters at IDC have added up some numbers and divided by their shoe size and worked out that the recent slowdown in UK sales of detachable devices will be reversed in the second half of 2017.
IDC thinks that thin and light form factors will account for a third of the total UK PC device market this year.
UK PC and tablet sales will shrink 6.8 percent this year to 3.2 million units as Brexit uncertainty, exchange rate fluctuations and public spending cuts put pressure on device spending.
Despite this, the momentum behind thin and light form factors will continue as consumers and businesses gravitate towards features that support mobility and OEMs attempt to decrease exposure to low-margin, entry-level PCs and tablets, IDC said.
Detachables, covertibles and ultra-slims are set to account for a third of the total PC device market in the UK in 2017, up from 25 percent in 2016, IDC said. This figure will rise to 43 percent by 2021, it added.
Convertibles will grow by 28.9 percent this year, ultra-slims by 9.8 percent and Detachables will return to stellar growth in the second half despite losing steam over the past six months.
IDC Western Europe Personal Computing Devices senior research analyst Daniel Gonçalves said that several factors affected the performance of detachables in the UK in the last six months.
“There has been a replacement of notebooks by Windows-based detachables eased off, as the benefits have not been seen to be clear enough. Secondly, there was a growing focus on convertibles by many prominent OEMs, and this has had some negative impact on detachables. Lastly, there was a longer than usual period during which major detachable brands capable of boosting demand weren’t updated.”
Detachable sales will rise by 27.6 percent in the six months to 31 December 2017, IDC predicted.
“We are confident that the number of new models being introduced will help boost shipments from the second half of 2017,” Gonçalves said.
