Dubai: Intel Corporation is aiming to capture 10-15 per cent of the tablet market in the Middle East and North Africa market this year, a top official told Gulf News on Wednesday after the chipmaker announced its first-quarter results.
“The regional tablet market is expected to grow more than 80 per cent to around 10 million tablets this year compared to 5.7 million last year as IT spending in the region is expected to grow five per cent year on year,” said Taha Khalifa, regional general manager for Intel Middle East and North Africa.
In 2013, totally 5.7 million tablets were sold in the Mena region, according to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
Khalifa said that Intel’s strategy is to support both Android and Windows tablets and also working with Chinese tablet manufactures for targeting tablets below $150 price point. Despite a slowdown in PC business, Intel’s ambitious goal to stake out market share in tablets is on track.
“Chinese manufacturers’ traditional strength is in the low-end tablets, however there are engagements happening in the Windows ecosystem,” he said.
The chipmaker on Tuesday reported a first-quarter revenue of $12.8 billion, operating income of $2.5 billion and net income of $1.9 billion.
“We saw solid growth in the data centre, signs of improvement in the PC business and shipped 5 million tablet processors. Our goal is to sell 40 million tablets this year,” he said.
However, he expects the PC shipments to remain flat this year, both regionally and globally.
“We are seeing stabilisation in the PC market. We reported one per cent fall in year-on-year revenue of $7.9 billion in the first quarter.
Intel’s data centre revenue grew 11 per cent year on year to $3.1 billion while the Internet of Things revenue grew 32 per cent year-over-year to $482 million.
“We are happy with the Internet of Things growth. Intel is transforming from a PC company to a computing company and we have been doing this for the past few years,” Khalifa said.
Intel’s mobile and communications revenue was down 61 per cent year-over-year to $156 million as it faces a stiff competition from ARM holdings and Qualcomm.
According to IDC stats, he said Mena PC shipments are expected to be around the same as of last year of 10 million units.
“We expect the regional PC business to be flat in 2014. We are seeing a stabilisation effect happening in key markets, especially in Saudi Arabia and a rebound in Egypt,” Khalifa said.
From an IT perspective, he said total spending is expected to be between $32 billion and $35 billion this year.
The report said that Intel expects $13 billion, plus or minus $500 million revenue in the second quarter.
However, the chipmaker expects full-year revenue to be flat, unchanged from prior expectations.
