The Hindu : PC sales cross 8 lakh units

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

Business

Business

PC sales cross 8 lakh units

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MARCH 25. The hardware industry is confident of registering a growth rate of 30 per cent in IT hardware during the current fiscal and feels that the outlook for the next financial year could be better, provided the Government came out with some more fiscal incentives. The reduction in excise duty on computers to 8 per cent from 16 per cent and the subsequent abolition of excise duty on microprocessors, hard-disk drives, floppy-disk drives and CD-Rom drives has helped the industry reduce prices of computers. The impact is likely to be perceptible in the fourth quarter and even in the next fiscal.

"We are confident that in 2003-04 we will comfortably cross 30 lakh units, a growth of 30 per cent over 2002-03. The growth projection for the forthcoming fiscal is healthy, and this may become still better by another 5-10 per cent should the Government reduce excise duty to 8 per cent and increase depreciation to 100 per cent on all IT products," said Vinnie Mehta of the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology, the apex body representing the hardware, training and R&D services sectors of the IT industry.

Announcing the findings of its industry performance review for the third quarter (October-December) of 2003-04, the association said the desktop PC market grossed over eight lakh units. The buoyancy could be attributed to increased consumption by traditional sectors such as telecom, banking, financial services and insurance, IT-enabled services and manufacturing as well as non-traditional sectors such as education, retail outlets and self-employed professionals. However, consumption in the Government was subdued but was expected to gain momentum in the next quarter.

The small and medium enterprises and in the home market, which are highly price sensitive segments of the market, accounted for a good proportion of the sales mainly due to the drop in prices, especially at the entry-level.

The assembled PCs, the smaller lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems, accounted for over half of the PC sales. The Indian brands accounted for 15 per cent of the market while the MNC brands accounted for the remaining 30 per cent.

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