Indian hardware market growth to be positive: Gartner

MUMBAI: The Indian IT hardware end-user spending, which is estimated at $ 2.3 billion in 2002 would grow to $6.78 billion by 2006, at a CAGR of 9.5 percent and this includes PCs, notebooks, printers, servers and workstations. This was announced during the NASSCOM-Gartner Summit 2002.

Gartner, Principal Analyst - Hardware Platforms, Mathew Boon said, "Events of the past year caused a wave of cautious spending on hardware by companies across all verticals. In many cases, hardware purchases have either been postponed or cancelled as the corporate sensed tough business conditions in the near future. Though it spells tough times for now, the market is slated for recovery towards the first half of 2003."






The Indian PC market accounted for revenue worth $1.6 billion in 2001 with a CAGR of 11.5 percent from 2001 through 2006. PC end-user spending is estimated to contribute 85 percent of the total end user spending in 2002 and would account for 90 percent of total market in year 2006.





Added Boon, "The current demand for PCs arise mainly from the urban areas. The up-country markets provide scope for further elevation in demand but poor infrastructure and logistical hurdles inhibit the product reach. Around 28 percent of PC shipment go into the home segment. The Internet and education segment have been positive drivers here."





In a recent survey of 1900 ASEAN based organizations, which includes India, indications for the next 12 months reveal that 20 percent of the organizations were expected to embark on Server Consolidation programs.





Within the core hardware infrastructure spaces of servers and storage, a number of trends are emerging across India and Asia Pacific, which would help in driving growth in the next 12 months - 36 months. Within the ASEAN marketplace, many organisations are typically facing huge under-utilization of storage resources often to the tune of 50 percent. In a recent survey, over 20 percent of organizations expected to install SAN solutions in the next 12 months which represents a huge increase in sentiment towards the benefits of networked storage capabilities.





The India server market, though small overall than some countries in the region, is typically cautious while investing. It appears that corporate have recognized some of the ROI benefits that consolidation can bring and have been fairly aggressively looking at consolidation. Server consolidation is becoming one of the major drivers for server deployments today.





The server market generated business to the tune of $250 million in 2001 and is expected to show a CAGR of 3.5 percent from 2001 through 2006. Server and storage consolidation is still an early concept for the Indian market though some businesses have already started giving serious thoughts to the issue. Server deployments saw a decline in the growth rate to a certain extent mainly due to the economic slowdown.





(CNS)