Nigeria in Positive as MEA IT Market Records Mixed fortunes

Contrary to a general trend of decline in ICT equipment and device shipment across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) markets, there was still cheering news in the shipments of blade servers which grew 10.9 per cent across the region, with the biggest annual growth seen in Nigeria, UAE, Pakistan and Oman.

According to latest results published by IDC (International Data Corporation), the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the IT, telecom and consumer technology markets, the overall MEA x86 server market suffered a 5.9 per cent year-on-year decline in unit terms during the first quarter of 2013 but a 3.0 per cent increase in value to reach $321.94 million.

Zeeshan Gaya, research manager for servers and systems at IDC MEA and Turkey said Saudi Arabia continues to be the bright spot among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, registering year-on-year unit growth of 31.0 per cent.

 “Deals within the education and government sector were the major contributors to the high uptake. But in sharp contrast, the UAE market experienced a severe decline of 21.5 per cent over the same period, with no sizeable projects taking place in the country.”

Overall, the GCC suffered a drop of 10.8 per cent in volume during Q1 2013 but expanded 4.4 per cent in terms of revenue. Bahrain and Qatar registered double-digit drops in x86 shipments of 28.4 per cent and 17.6 per cent, respectively.

Key initiatives in the banking sector accelerated Oman’s growth by 12.6 per cent in volume and 58.2 per cent in revenue, year on year.

Kuwait remained mostly flat for the quarter, expanding 1.4 per cent in volume on the back of a few deals in the education and government sectors.

The downward trend continued in the North African market in Q1 2013, with shipments to the region declining 25.1 per cent year on year. “In Morocco, there was shrinkage in the number of deals taking place in both the public and private sectors during the quarter, with several key projects either resized with smaller budgets or simply postponed,” said Gaya.

“The government and the oil and gas sector remain the highest spending verticals in Algeria and Tunisia, although the first quarter of the year was very slow in both countries, with very few projects taking place.”

As previously forecast, the South African x86 server market experienced a year-on-year unit decline of 11.7 per cent.

IDC observed that the main drivers for the country market in Q1 2013 were the business services, government, finance, and retail sectors.
“Telecom operators are continuing to invest in server infrastructure to expand their datacenters as they seek to diversify their service offerings, largely around readiness for cloud service delivery as the demand for cloud services start unfolding,” said Gaya.

“The small and medium-sized business (SMB) space continues to show demand for servers as such organizations are late deployers’ of server virtualization and IT infrastructure renewals. The public sector was also relatively active in Q1 2013 as national governments headed towards their budget deadlines and allocated additional spending to clear up any remaining funds.”

The overall negative trend was observed uniformly across all form factors in the MEA region. Towers took the biggest hit, suffering a 15.5 per cent decline in shipments year on year, followed by rack and density-optimized servers, which slumped 8.7 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively.

Contrary to this trend, shipments of blade servers grew 10.9 per cent across the MEA region, with the biggest annual growth seen in the UAE, Pakistan, Oman, and Nigeria.

Eight-socket servers took a hit in the first quarter of the year, recording a year-on-year volume decline of 41.8 per cent.

One-socket and two–socket server shipments shrunk by 9.1 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively. Two-socket servers remain the dominant capability, comprising more than half the MEA market with 70.3 per cent volume share.