Back-to-school shopping boosts computer sales

Back-to-school shopping spree is giving a strong boost to personal computer sales that recently slowed after seeing a spike during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some 2.2 million computers are expected to be sold on the local market this year, according to people from the sector. Last year, sales also stood at 2.2 million units.

Laptops account for about 70 percent of sales, while desktop computers constitute the remaining 30 percent. Prices of computers, whose supplies are affected by chip shortages and currency exchange rates, range from between 5,000 Turkish Liras to 40,000 liras.

This is a busy period for computer companies, said Banu Soyak from Lenovo Türkiye. "We expect the market to shrink this year compared with the last year, due to the economic conditions in the global and local economy and supply issues," she added.

The sector saw a strong growth in 2021 owing to the pandemic but demand is slowing as the pandemic situation improves and the market is saturated as well as concerns over inflation, said Sema Yıldız at Acer Türkiye.

She noted that computer sales were down in the past quarter and deliveries were down around 15 percent in the quarter from a year ago.

Computer, books and telecommunication equipment sales increased by 14.7 percent on an annual basis and inched up 0.3 percent month-on-month in June, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) reported earlier this month.

The annual increase in sales was 47 percent in the previous month and 20.4 percent in April.

Schools will begin the new semester on Sept. 12.