EMEA in The Second Quarter of 2013 Increased Marginally by 0.1% on Year to 407,417 Units

Thin client shipments in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) in the second quarter of 2013 increased marginally by 0.1% on year to 407,417 units, according to results published by IDC in its EMEA Quarterly Enterprise Client Device Tracker. After the weak first quarter of 2013, the thin client market struggled with a contraction in demand across the EMEA region. Although Western Europe (WE) showed a moderate one-digit growth in the second quarter of 2013, the region as a whole barely broke even, due to extremely weak shipments in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (CEMA). IDC expects a revival of thin client shipments in the second half of 2013, thus achieving a moderate 1.9% annual volume growth in 2013.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Dell dominated the EMEA thin client market and finished the second quarter of 2013 with 30.5% and 24.1% market shares, respectively. After the shipment slowdown in the beginning of the year that was due to high inventory surpluses, NComputing's shipments increased by 31.7% on year, allowing it to finish in fifth place with 6.2% market volume share, the highest in the vendor's history.

The all-in-one (AIO) thin client market performed healthily in the second quarter of 2013, almost doubling its volume of shipments on year. The share of AIO thin clients increased from 2.7% in the first quarter of 2012 to about 5.3% of the total thin client market in the second quarter of 2013, based on shipments of 21,556 units. In value terms, AIO market growth was even stronger, with share jumping from 5.4% to 9.7% to reach US$13.31 million. Samsung and LG made the largest contribution to this growth, accounting for a combined market share of almost 80%.

"Despite the moderate volume growth in EMEA in the first half of 2013, we expect thin clients shipments to increase in the second half of 2013, boosted by demand from the education sector and end-of-year PC replacements resulting from the end of support for Windows XP," said Oleg Sidorkin, a senior research analyst at IDC. "In 2013, the EMEA thin client market will grow in value by about 10% on year, due to robust demand for new, more expensive models and accelerating shipments of AIO thin clients."

In the second quarter of 2013, Western Europe (WE) recorded a moderate 4.5% on-year growth in thin client shipments to 340,331 units. For the same period, the CEMA thin client market declined sharply by 17.5% to 67,086 units. Russia, rest of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and rest of Middle East and Africa (MEA) posted the strongest declines, due to delayed projects and keen competition from commercial desktop PCs. IDC expects EMEA thin client shipments to continue to grow in the second half of 2013; the WE market will increase 5.9% on year, while CEMA market growth will reach about 4.2%.

Source: IDC, compiled by Digitimes, September 2013