India PC sales to touch 3 million

NEW DELHI: PC sales in India are expected to reach three million units in fiscal 2003-04, according to the findings of MAIT's Industry Performance Review for the first-half of 2003-04. Fiscal 2002-03 had recorded 2.3 million units of PC sales.

The survey also shows that PC sales in the first half have crossed the one million mark. With sound macroeconomic condition and buoyant buying sentiment in the market, MAIT has revised its PC sales growth projections for FY 2003-04 from earlier 20 percent to 30 percent.

According to the study, the Desktop PC market grossed 12.58 lakh units registering a growth of 32 percent over the same period in the previous year. According to MAIT's study, the turnaround in PC sales can be attributed, on one hand, to increased consumption by Industry verticals such as telecom, banking and financial services and IT-enabled services as well as major e-Governance and digital divide initiatives of the central and state governments.

On the other, the highly price sensitive Indian market has responded like never before to the drop in prices, especially at the entry-level. This has led to a significant increase in the consumption in the small and medium enterprises and in the home market.

According to the study forecasts, the overall markets for notebooks is likely to increase from a current installation of 30,000 to more than 75,000 by the end of this year. The assembled PCs accounted for 57 percent of the PC sales in H1/2003-04 and in absolute terms, the sales of the assembled brands grew by 57 percent. The proportion of the assembled PC sales grew from 48 percent in the same period, the previous year.

The MAIT-IMRB Review reveals that PC sales to the business segment improved by 20 percent accounting for 74 percent of the total PC consumption. Households witnessed a significant improvement in consumption compared to that in the first-half of the last year with sales growing by 88 percent over H1/2002-03. The consumption in Home-offices also grew by 97 percent.

As per the study by MAIT -IMRB, overall printer sales grew by 20 percent compared to that in H1/2002-03. The first-half of fiscal 2003-04 was marked by the resurgence by 22 percent in the market for the dot-matrix printers due to increased consumption in the household and the retails/outlets.

Similarly sales of Inkjet printers grew by 21 percent led the households where consumption increased by 102 percent, although the sales in the business segment for Inkjets dipped by 22 percent. Laser printers recorded a growth of nine percent due to significantly high consumption in the retails/outlets. The growth projection for FY 2003-04 for overall printer sales has been revised from 15 percent to 20 percent; sales are expected to cross one million units.

The sales growth in smaller towns and cities continued undiminished in FY 2003-04. Class B and C cities accounted for 50 percent of total PC sales, registering a growth of 42 percent, the proportion increased from 46 percent in the same period last fiscal. Consumption of notebooks in Class B cities grew a whopping 246 percent accounting for 17 percent of the total market.

Further, although the overall sales for servers registered a negative growth, Class B cities registered a growth of 206 percent and Class C 192 percent.

MAIT's Industry Performance Review - ITOPs, conducted by market research firm IMRB (Indian Market Research Bureau), is bi-annual and aims to address the hardware sector's efforts to manage the business environment, gauge the market potential and consumer trends.

(CyberMedia News Service)