Channel SSD use rises in Europe as prices fall

Adoption rates of solid-state disks (SSDs) in Notebooks and Desktops sold by partners are rising across Europe, according to the latest data published by CONTEXT, the IT market intelligence company. The use of SSDs is seen as a quick upgrade, particularly as prices have fallen. More than half (53%) of notebooks sold through Western Europe’s largest distributors in Q2 2018 featured SSDs compared to 41% in the same quarter a year ago while, for desktops, the share of those with SSDs rose from 27% to 38%.

“The increase in both categories was driven by a rise in volume sales of SSD-based systems coupled with a decline in products featuring traditional hard disks”, said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT. “SSD adoption rates were also up compared to Q1 2018 when 51% of notebooks and 35% of desktops were based on the newer storage technology.”

Adoption rates were lower in Central and Eastern Europe but there was still a steady rise. In the first two months of Q2 2018, 32% of notebooks sold in the region featured SSDs compared to 22% a year ago, while SSD desktops’ share rose from 21% to 28%.

After rising in 2017, the prices of SSDs fell in the first half of this year and this has helped to drive up adoption rates. In Western Europe, for example, in Q2 2018 the average distributor sell price (ASP) for 256GB SSDs – the most popular size in PC clients – was down from €89 to €71 year-on-year.