Tablet market stood at 550,000 to 600,000 units in 2013, while laptop sales are estimated at 400,000 to 500,000 units.
“We estimate laptop sales amounted to some 450,000 to 500,000 units in 2013. Convertibles and especially 2 in 1 laptops will continue to grow this year even though they will not account for a significant share of the market,” Toshiba Romania officials told ZF.
“We believe the 2 in 1 format will gradually grow and unify the two major product segments: laptops and tablets.
The local subsidiary of the Japanese Toshiba group accounted for 10% of the laptop market by number of units sold last year, and its market share by value was 1% or 2% higher. The market share by volume stood at 8.2% in 2012, according to market data.
On the other hand, Acer Romania’s sales manager Bogdan Iftemie says the laptop market only reached 400,000 units in 2013, while desktop sales stood at 150,000, as consumers preferred to choose products that provide greater mobility.
“Customer preferences are changing fast and drastically, I might say. There’s a very strong trend towards mobility. A strong market change-inducing factor is the high commoditization of products and the severe price erosion, which is most visible with tablets,” Iftemie explained.
“Most customers see the tablet as a glass screen enabling one to access the Internet, Facebook, take photos and listen to music, which should come with a low price. I’ve seen local vendors selling tablets for EUR70 to EUR90 on average, which says it all about the product and its quality, and about the customer that buys it. Tablets are a product that is harder to differentiate. There’s still a lot of confusion among users.”
Acer sold some 90,000 laptops in Romania in 2013, accounting for 22% of the segment.
The tablet market saw spectacular growth, with sales tripling year-on-year in 2013 from about 200,000 of 2012. On the other hand, laptop sales dropped from almost 550,000 in 2012 to 450,000-500,000 in 2013.
The overall PC market fell in 2013 compared with 2012, says Aurel Netin, country manager of Lenovo Romania, Bulgaria and the Republic of Moldova and the largest company in this business both worldwide and in Romania.
“IDC has not officially announced fourth quarter results yet, so we cannot publish our calendar year results, but I estimate 2013 will show a slight decline on the previous year in terms of total PC numbers,” he said.
Dell, HP and Asus local representatives did not return ZF’s calls for comment on 2013 computer sales.
PC sales fell 10% to 160,000 units in the third quarter of last year, according to market research company IDC data.
Laptops remain the best sellers of the three PC makers cited: Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba, while convertibles and all-in-one systems continue to account for a small part of revenue.
“Affordable notebooks remain the best-selling PCs, i.e. those priced at 1,400 to 1,700 lei (EUR309 to EUR375). Convertibles are still a nice-products, as are all-in-ones,” Acer Romania’s sales manager added.
Toshiba Romania officials, too, said laptops were the best-selling products in the business PC category, while AIOs had “real trouble penetrating the market”.
Acer and Toshiba do not rely on desktop sales for growth, while Lenovo is the market leader on the AIO segment, Netin says.
“Desktops accounted for more than 20% of Lenovo’s total PC sales. We are market leaders on the all-in-one segment and convertibles (included in the laptop category) exceeded 10% [of sales].”
Last year, Lenovo and Acer also entered the local tablet market, dominated by Samsung and Apple on the high-end segment. Local producers account for a significant share of sales by volume, since a locally branded tablet costs about EUR100.
Lenovo’s Aurel Netin says the company entered the tablet market in Romania in mid 2013 and sales volumes are not that relevant considering the local companies selling low-priced products.
Acer Romania entered the tablet segment in the second half and sold about 10,000 units, Bogdan Iftemie said.
Toshiba started tablet sales at the end of the year, when it entered the Windows 8 powered tablet segment with its Encore 8 model, its officials said.
They believe tablets running Windows will gain significant ground in the coming period and Toshiba will surely be a major player on the segment.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)