Indian PC mkt grows 35% in Q3: Gartner

NEW DELHI: The Indian market grew 35.1 percent shipping more than 885,000 units in the third quarter of 2004 according to Gartner, Inc. This includes desktops, notebooks and servers. India's share in the Asia Pacific region increased to 10.4 percent from 9.2 percent in the previous quarter.

According to Gartner, desktop shipment grew annually by 32 percent during this quarter, while notebooks registered 126 percent growth. This is in confirmation with growth trends observed during the first half of 2004. Small and medium businesses and finance and banking continue to be the growth drivers.

"While the corporate market continued to look healthy, top vendors are now seen to be aggressively targeting the premium end of the consumer segment," said Gartner India analyst-computing systems Vinod Nair.

Commenting on the notebook market, he said, "Local entrants are expected to gain some market share in the short term with price-point advantages over branded players, though quality of after-sales service will be highly questionable."

With regards to future trends, Nair commented, "Some telecom service providers are now tapping avenues to bundle the desktop with Internet service making it available at affordable monthly plans. If priced properly, this will be a good move to increase desktop penetration and to grow the market in India."

From a market share perspective, Hewlett-Packard maintained top position with 14.3 percent followed by HCL with 12.1 percent. IBM clocked 8.3 percent market share.

Meanwhile from an Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) perspective, 8.5 million units of PC were shipped in the third quarter 2004. This is an increase of 9.8 percent from the same period one year ago, equivalent to 3.1 percent sequentially.

All markets in the region performed positively, especially India, which grew by 35 percent, compared to a year ago. Overall in Asia Pacific region, the professional market grew 15.7 percent and the home market at 2.2 percent. Desk based PC market year over year growth is 6.5 percent while mobile PC is at 26.1 percent.