Home office biggest potential PC market: IDC

NEW DELHI: The biggest potential market segments for PC are the home/home offices and the SME segment with 65 and 56 per cent respectively, according to the latest survey named Map IT conducted by IDC. The figure is mostly true in smaller towns since bigger towns would already have considerable PC penetration. More established segments like large establishments and government, research, educational establishments, which already have high rate of PC penetration, is not likely to witness the same rate of growth.

The home/home offices in the North and the SME in the South are the hottest segments with growth potential placed at 105 per cent and 65 per cent during this year. In smaller cities, the growth rate of the home/home office segment is predicted to be more than the national average of 23 per cent. The home/home office penetration is the highest in Baroda at 16.4 per cent followed by Pune with 15.8 per cent and Bangalore with 15.3 per cent. In the SME segment, Bangalore has the highest PC penetration at 73.6 per cent, followed by Pune at 67.3 per cent.

In terms of expected growth rate, Ludhiana with 441 per cent figures at the top in the PC adoption in the home/home office segment followed by Jaipur at 309 per cent. Kanpur, Indore, Surat and Patna are also expected to witness significant growth in this segment.

The major focus of the survey was to map the IT usage in 25 cities in terms of overall spending for 1998-99 and the pattern for IT spending to emerge during 1999-2000. The survey also aimed at figuring out other user patterns like brand awareness, the kinds of products used, etc. The study was conducted by the Consumer and Corporate Research Group of IDC, India, during mid 1999 covering a sample of 33,000 households across 25 cities. In terms of overall spending, the Indian industry is expected to witness a growth of 23 per cent during 1999-2000. However, the Southern states would account for higher spending on IT at 26 per cent. The figure stands at Rs 15,398 crore of which the home markets will account for 9 per cent of the spending.