Notebooks market buoyant: IDC

GURGAON: The Indian PC market has crossed yet another milestone with one million shipments in a single quarter.

During the April-May-June (AMJ) quarter of 2005, the Indian PC market saw a nine percent sequential and 31 percent year-on-year growth to reach 10.5 lakh units, according to IDC's India Quarterly PC Market Tracker report.

"The AMJ quarter typically is characterized by sluggishness in the desktops market. The overall desktop segment in AMJ 2005, nevertheless, continued to expand. This was primarily due to the fact that a lot of deals from JFM were actually consummated during AMJ", said Dinender Sharma, manager, Computing Products & Channels Research, IDC India.

In the overall Client PC (Notebooks and Desktops) market, HP retained its top slot with a sequential increase of 19 percent and a year-on-year 45 percent growth. HCL continued to stay at second position, with a 40 percent year-on-year growth. Lenovo occupied the third position.

IDC said that the data for Lenovo included shipments for IBM PCD (including Desktop and Notebook PCs and excluding x86 Servers and Personal Workstations) starting in 2Q 2005. This reflected the legal status of the companies, which merged during the second quarter of 2005.

The commercial desktops category witnessed one percent sequential growth and 22 percent year-on-year growth. HCL led the ranks followed closely by HP. Lenovo and Dell, however, grew faster at sequential growth rates of 31 percent and 75 percent respectively.

The consumer desktops segment witnessed a 16 percent growth sequentially and 30 percent year-on-year growth. HP has again maintained a lead while HCL was a close second.

"In the previous quarter, consumers adopted a 'wait and watch' policy due to confusion over VAT and the impact of new WTO regulations on import tariffs. The VAT issue having become more transparent, price drops on account of rationalization of duty structures and onset of summer vacations were key contributing factors to the growth displayed by this segment," said Sharma.

The Notebook PC segment was the star performer. It grew 60 percent sequentially and 138 percent year-on-year and crossed the one Lakh barrier - yet another first. According to Sharma, notebook PCs emerged as a preferred choice over desktops due to factors of convenience and productivity.

Centrino-based notebooks constituted two-thirds of the total shipments. In terms of market rankings, HP stayed at the top, followed by Lenovo and Acer.

With price points either falling or stabilizing across all form factors, IDC expects the momentum to continue in the coming months.