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Among our highlights this month are positive
news for collaboration headsets, mice sales, and South African and
Polish distributors.
Here’s our pick of the top stories in more detail:
Smart home security and appliances gain market share
The smart home market has evolved considerably since 2019, when
the largest share of revenue (62%) was attributed to smart speakers.
As of H1 2024, smart home appliances (33%) lead the market as the
only category to grow during the period–up 3% from the same time
last year. They edged out the smart security and access control
category (29%), which includes devices like the Ring doorbell. Smart
speakers accounted for 18%, virtually unchanged from the previous year.
While H1 2024 saw poor year–on–year (YoY) sales
growth in major markets such as Spain (–17%), Germany (–25%), and the
UK (–18%), performance in smaller countries offset this to some
extent, resulting in an overall decline of just –9% YoY growth across Europe.
Strong performance for collaboration headsets in recent weeks
In Week 39, collaboration headsets,
collaboration cameras, and conference solutions all performed above
the index revenue trend baseline. This is promising, as these
categories collectively represent 81% of revenues in the unified
communications (UC) market. Headsets were the standout category,
with 6% YoY growth.
Cameras experienced a revenue decline of –5.6%
in Week 39 but performed reasonably well overall in Q3, supported by
strong sales in July. In terms of geographical performance, Poland,
Italy, France, and Germany all exceeded the baseline as of Week 39.
However, only France (3.2%) and Poland (13.6%) achieved YoY revenue
growth in Q3.
Mice sales dominate the accessories space
All categories within the accessories market
performed better in Week 40 than they did in Week 34. However, mice
led the way, with keyboards and keypads also performing above the
revenue trend index baseline.
In nearly all major markets, revenue growth for
accessories closely matched last year’s performance. While headsets
are underperforming at present, except in Spain, a significant
improvement is expected towards the end of Q4.
Networking, security, and software pick up in South Africa
In South Africa, the government of national
unity is making progress, with the country enjoying 200 days of
uninterrupted electricity supply. Inflation is projected to drop to
around 4.4% by the end of 2024, and interest rates have already
decreased by approximately 25 basis points.
The IT distribution sector has responded
positively, with South Africa currently scoring around 120 on the
CONTEXT performance index–well above the revenue trend index baseline.
In comparison, Europe, Argentina, and Turkey remain below the baseline.
Both business and consumer channels in South
Africa are on a positive trajectory, although business channels
scored over 120 on the index while consumer channels were just below
the baseline in Q3. The positive performance is being driven by disk
storage, software and licences, and networking systems. Networking
hardware has benefited from large deals across multiple vendors,
while growth in software sales is primarily due to security virtualisation.
Poland outperforms Europe
Sales through IT distribution in Poland
surpassed those of Europe as a whole in Week 42, according to the
index revenue trend. This success is largely driven by the consumer
channel, although business sales are also closing in on European levels.
Despite an overall decline in revenue growth of
–7.3% in Q3 2024, Polish distributors saw positive growth in several
categories, including desktop computing (6.8%), printing consumables
(11.1%), computing components (7.4%), and software and licences
(5.8%). With the recent announcement of an ambitious government
digital transformation strategy, Poland’s outlook is increasingly optimistic.
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