Toshiba is the number one portable PC vendor in the East African region, the International Data Corporation (IDC) has revealed.

According to an IDC 2013 report, the Japanese company had a market share of 23% and year-on-year growth of 118% in the East African region’s portable PC market.

Other top four portable PC vendors in East Africa are Samsung in second place, HP in third place, Lenovo in fourth followed by Dell at the number five spot, as noted by the IDC. However, the market share and growth rate of the vendors has not been publicly revealed by the IDC.

The East African region represents Kenya, Uganda, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, says the IDC.

The IDC has, however; reported that shipments of portable PCs to Africa, the Mideast and Turkey declined 18.2% year-on-year to total 2.7 million units during the fourth quarter of 2013.

The IDC also noted that a shift towards mobility has caused all key markets across the region to experience significant year-on-year declines in PC shipments during Q4 of last year.

"End users in the MEA region continue to opt for enhanced mobility, shifting to sleeker, lighter and smaller devices with longer battery lives," said Fouad Rafiq Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.

Commenting on Toshiba’s top East African position, general manager for digital products and services, Santosh Varghese said, “Our continued efforts to develop and offer innovative products, services and programmes towards our customers and partners have driven us to strengthen our position in the market. We’ll continue to support our customers with value added services and a range of mobile computing solutions to further enhance customer satisfaction.”

Varghese added, "In spite of the tough market situation especially in second and third quarter of 2013, Toshiba has been able to achieve the top position in the East Africa region with an impressive 118 per cent annual growth due to unprecedented innovations we introduced in our latest products, and our healthy channel partnerships."