India PC market shipments drop in 2008: IDC

MUMBAI, INDIA: IDC India, a provider in research and advisory services and a subsidiary of CyberMedia, today announced that the overall India Client PC market shipments remained flat at 7.98 million during January-December 2008 against 8.06 million in 2007.

According to IDC’s India Quarterly PC Tracker 2008, 4Q 2008, March 2009 release, the desktop PC shipments dropped by 10.1 per cent for the calendar year 2008, while notebook PC shipments recorded a growth of 31.5 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

During the October-December 2008 quarter (4Q 2008) the overall India Client PC shipments were 1.56 million units, a drop of 22.7 per cent over the same period previous year, it added.

During this quarter the desktop PC shipments dropped 24.7 per cent, while notebook PC shipments recorded a 17.4 per cent de-growth compared to 4Q 2007.

“The Home and SMB segments recorded the lowest drop (in percentage terms) in CY 2008 vis-à-vis CY 2007,” said Sumanta Mukherjee, lead analyst, Computing Products Research, IDC India.

“The measures announced by the RBI to free up credit are expected to revive demand from these segments and a moderate recovery in shipments may result during the second half of CY 2009.”

Sumanta further added that the industry is also resting its hopes on the infrastructure, public sector spending and e-governance and development projects.

During the fourth quarter Hewlett-Packard retained the top spot in the overall India Client PC (notebooks and desktops combined) market with a market share of 15.6 per cent by unit shipments, said the release.

Dell dislodged HCL from the second spot with a 10.9 per cent share, while HCL was third with 9.6 per cent of total PC shipments.

In terms of desktop PC shipments during 4Q 2008, HP and HCL were tied at first position with a market share of 10.6 per cent each, while Dell ranked third.

In terms of notebook PC shipments during 4Q 2008, HP retained the top spot with a reduced market share of 27.6 per cent followed by Dell at the second spot while Acer came in third.

Kapil Dev Singh, country manager, IDC India said that despite the RBI measures, CY 2009 could still see a drop in overall India Client PC shipments.

“Judicious inventory management, coupled with marketing initiatives to explore the hitherto untapped ‘long tail’ of customers in the Indian heartland could be the key to survival in a tough year,” added Kapil Dev Singh.