Most popular laptop brands in South Africa

Brands like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, and MSI are among the most popular laptop manufacturers in South Africa, according to Dreamware Tech and Progenix.

MyBroadband asked several prominent retailers about the most popular laptop brands and price ranges among their customers.

Dreamware Tech told MyBroadband that the most popular brands it sells are Dell, Asus, MSI, and Lenovo. However, this differs based on customer budget and specification preferences.

“Our laptops have a wide spread of popularity depending on the price points and features offered. Popular brands are Dell, Asus, MSI and Lenovo,” it said.

Progenix gave similar feedback but with the exclusion of MSI. Its gaming customers tend to favour Asus, while home and business users most commonly go for Dell or Lenovo-branded laptops.

“Overall, the most popular brand can be split between gaming laptops and home/business laptops,” it said.

“On the gaming side, Asus takes the lead by quite a margin, followed by Dell.”

“On the home/business side, it’s a split between Dell and Lenovo, likely because of the onsite warranty on many of the higher-end laptops, which is a big thing for business users,” Progenix added.

Regarding the most popular price points for laptops, Progenix said customers frequently purchase laptops priced between R15,000 and R19,999.

“The most common price point is actually higher than we thought, at R15,000 to R19,999, followed by R20,000 to R29,999 and then R14,999 and below,” it told MyBroadband.

Dreamware Tech provided a broader price range, with its customers preferring laptops priced between R15,000 and R30,000.

“Price points obviously range depending on the customer, but our most popular price range would be between R15,000 and R30,000. Generally, these laptops provide a balance of decent pricing with decent specs as well,” it said.

MyBroadband also asked Takealot, Incredible, Wootware, Titan-Ice, and Rebel Tech for comments, but they hadn’t answered our questions by publication.

The feedback from Progenix and Dreamware Tech aligns quite well with recent data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), with one major exclusion — HP.

The IDC tracks PC shipments in the broader Southern African market, and according to its data, HP is the most popular laptop brand in the region.

It found that HP had increased its dominant share of the market from 23.8% in the first half of 2022 to 26.1% in the same period in 2023.

At the same time, Lenovo dropped into second place, substantially declining from 23.2% in H1 2022 to 17.8% in H1 2023.

Dell — which saw a slight market share improvement from 18.5% to 18.9% — moved up to take the number two spot.

Asus also grew its market share to 15% from 13.4% in the previous period. However, it remains firmly in fourth place.

The table below summarises the market shares of Southern Africa’s three biggest PC vendors, using the IDC’s data.