The Hindu : Business : One million PC sales in Q3

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 13, 2006

Business

Business

One million PC sales in Q3

Staff Correspondent

Branded PCs account for 62 p.c.

CHENNAI: PC sales — desktops and laptops taken together — crossed 11 lakh (1.1 million) units during the October-December quarter. Sales of notebooks and peripherals witnessed robust growth. With strong macro economic conditions and upbeat market sentiment, sales in the fourth quarter are expected to be buoyant. Sales in 2005-06 are expected to cross 4.4 million units, according to Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the apex body representing the hardware, training and R&D services sectors of the IT industry, in its industry performance review for the quarter October-December 2005-06.

IT consumption is dominated by industry verticals and corporate sectors such as telecom, banking and financial services, manufacturing and IT-enabled services. Consumption in these segments are largely driven by investments in software, solutions and other enterprise products. Apart from these traditional sectors, high consumption is witnessed in SMEs, education, retail and other computer-centric small enterprises. In addition, the trend of increased PC purchase in households, smaller towns and cities, as witnessed over the last few quarters, is growing. Aggressive pricing by PC vendors has also helped improve PC penetration, especially in the households and SME segments.

According to Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, MAIT, this round of the quarterly study (October-December 2005-06) involved data collation from major vendors and around 400 resellers/vendors in the top 16 metros. The quarterly review covers the market size estimation for desktop PCs, notebooks, servers and peripherals — printers and UPS.

The desktop market grossed 9.67 lakh units in the third quarter of 2005-06, a growth of five per cent over the same period in the previous year. As per the MAIT-IMRB study, Assembled PCs, the smaller lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems, accounted for 38 per cent of PC sales in the third quarter of 2005-06, while the proportion of branded PCs was 62 per cent. Multinational brands accounted for 34 per cent of the market while the Indian brands accounted for 28 per cent.

Notebook sales touched 1.25 lakh units, recording 93 per cent year-on-year growth and 67 per cent sequential growth. The high growth in notebook consumption can be attributed to the drop in notebook prices and the additional benefit of mobility and space management. Server consumption was in excess of 14,400 units.

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