Dubai: Vendors are seeing a strong demand for laptops running on Windows 8 operating system rather than the new OS — Windows 10.
They are trying to get rid of the old inventories and then focus on Windows 10 machines.
“People are buying Windows 8 laptops rather than Windows 10 as prices are very cheap and every vendor wants to push its old inventories,” said Mahiuddin Khasru, sub regional head of Asus Middle East.
He said that Asus hasn’t reduced the prices much but are bundling it with good offers and has seen a strong demand for laptops and for all-in-ones during the first three days.
“We are expecting a big growth in gaming laptops. Our expectation is to grow around 30 per cent at Gitex for gaming laptops and between 5 per cent and 7 per cent overall,” Khasru said.
The Taiwanese company has two machines with full-fledged specs for Windows 10 and is selling i7 machines for Dh3,999.
Mohammad Hilili, general manager of Lenovo Gulf, said that offerings are tempting and they are much better than last year, around 30 per cent less depending on the models.
“We are selling mainly Window 10 pre-loaded machines. People are buying Windows 10 laptops even though the machines are slightly expensive than Windows 8 machines. People are ready to buy Windows 10 preloaded machines rather than buying the older version and then upgrading it to Windows 10,” he said.
Lenovo has 80 per cent of its machines running on Windows 10. Lenovo is selling devices with i3 processors for Dh1,399.
Fouad R. Charakla, research manager at International Data Corporation (IDC), said that some users are not replacing their machines and are instead spending more on smartphones. Smartphones and tablets are providing low-cost alternatives for communication, social media usage, etc.
According to IDC (International Data Corporation), the market value is expected to rise to $213.05 million (Dh782.50 million) in the third quarter compared to $188.43 million in the second quarter of this year.
“The market is expecting a growth of around 40,000 units compared to quarter on quarter mainly due to Gitex Shopper and mainly from laptops,” he said.
Rajat Rallan, senior brand merchandising manager for Dell Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said that the event seems to be positive so far and sees some positive sentiment from buyers and retailers.
He said that sales are mostly for Windows 8 because no vendors have good offers for Windows 10 machines. It is an “inventory issue” and everyone is rolling out Windows 10 machines in different languages. Arabic language is not available right now.
“Windows 10 will become mainstream and it all depends on the inventory. We have decent inventories of Windows 8 machines to last us through the event,” he said. Gaming machines are on the radar of the gamers and Dell and Asus have recorded good sales. We have sold around 100 units of Alienware gaming machines from our stand,” Rallan said.
Narayanan Venkataraman, PC category manager for printing and personal systems at HP Middle East, said that it is an encouraging start and accelerating.
For HP, 70 per cent of the sales were Windows 8 and 30 per cent for Windows 10 machines.
“It is an ideal time if buyers are interested in investing on a PC. We expect a flat year-on-year growth at Gitex due to the negative growth in the industry for the year,” Venkataraman said.
