There was a time when the joke was that whenever the PC
industry sneezes, the peripherals industry catches a cold. But last year's performance
tells a different story. For, while the PC industry saw a growth of 32% over the previous
year, translating to a sales figure of eight lakh PCs in the country, the peripherals
industry grew by a whopping 74%. Each product category grew in size and stature and what
was predominantly a printer market with monitors, keyboards, hard disk drives and CD ROM
drives finding a mention as 'others,' has got a distinct identity and impressive growth
outdoing the printer industry performance which grew by 24%.
An interesting trend witnessed last year was the
significant growth, in unit terms, in the monitor and keyboard markets. This accounted for
1.2 monitors and 1.5 keyboards for every PC sold. The boom in the SOHO and the SME segment
clearly marked this change in the market, added to the huge replacement market.
Printers: rising competition
In the printer market, the domination of inkjets over dot matrix printers
(DMPs) became
more clear last year with the DMP share going down from 50% to 35% of the total market,
and inkjets growing by 24% in units. Nevertheless, this is not to underestimate the huge
potential that exists for the impact market. A sale of 2,70,800 units, accounting for
about Rs 308 crore revenues, was witnessed last year in the impact segment. The year also
saw TVS Electronics, Wipro and Epson as the three important players in the impact
business, holding marketshares of 38.6%, 34% and 19% respectively of the DMP market. The
remaining 7% was shared by players such as Lipi Data Systems, L&T and
Godrej. The
rising competition made vendors take to innovation route, resulting in the launch of
application-specific and language printers.
Another noticeable trend was the shift from 9-wire to
24-wire products-and TVSE's MSP 345 breaking the sub-Rs 10,000 price barrier upset the
price levels and sped up the transition. Competition intensified in the ink jet segment,
leading to the downfall of HP's monopoly with players such as Epson, Canon and Xerox
increasing their marketshare in the ink jet segment. In terms of units, 2,25,500 inkjet
printers were sold in the market at a value of Rs 150 crore. Canon and Panasonic entered
the market and Xerox re-entered with a wide product portfolio, competitive pricing and
high-visibility campaigns. A clear indication of the mounting competition in this category
of printers. The main segments that brought about this change were home, SOHO and SME
segments. GPTL and Redington alone contributed around 80% of the total inkjet sales, with
almost all vendors tying up with either of the above two companies for distribution.
The lasers, however, proved a sore point for the industry,
witnessing a negative growth of 1% over the previous year. With little competition from
other players in this category, HP emerged as a clear number one. Lexmark and Tektronix
did a total sales of 4,149 and 500 units respectively in the laser category.
Scanners and plotters: expanding market
An interesting happening last year was the spurt in the scanner market. Formerly a
sophisticated product for specific applications in graphics and publication, scanners saw
revenue coming from home, SOHO and SME segments. Thanks to the increased multimedia,
Internet and graphic applications which proliferated the use of scanners. In all, a total
of 39,904 scanners were sold in the market at a value of Rs 44.3 crore during the fiscal
1998-99, as against 11,000 scanners sold in the previous year. Umax, a world leader in the
scanner business, fighting rival HP, set the trend in the Indian market last year by
gaining a 55%-plus marketshare of the overall market. HP followed this with a marketshare
of 35%-plus, and launching more entry-level models in the scanners category. Price levels
going down to almost that of an entry-level inkjet printer of about Rs 6,000 also impacted
the sales.
The year also saw the launch of multi-function products
such as scanner-cum-copiers and scanner-cum-printers and many other such combinations,
which, however, didn't last, courtesy their high pricing and non-acceptance in the Indian
market. Plotters, remained almost stagnant in the market with a marginal increase in unit
sales. HP's wide format printers launched last year with competitive pricing, also upset
the performance of two major contenders Calcomp and Encad, who are present in the CAD
applications segment.
Monitors: a colorful marketplace
Another area which witnessed excitement last year was the monitor market. The last year
saw many large electronic MNCs fragment the market, and in the process increase
competition for the local brands. With price differential becoming less than Rs 1,000
between foreign and Indian brands, driven further by strong brand equity of MNCs in the
market, the monitors market saw an explosion in sales grossing 9,81,250 units. But with a
60% OEM market for monitors, the total number of branded monitors sold was 4,65,394 at a
value of Rs 252.48 crore. Samsung and LG had the toughest fight in the 15" color
monitor segment and upward, with the duo alone selling a total of 3,48,000 monitors in the
market (inclusive of OEMs). The Indian monitor market, which predominantly monochrome, for
the first time shifted to color monitors, though the transition from 14" to 15"
is not significant in terms of units sold.
Among the Indian manufacturers, Microtek emerged on the top
in overall sales in the monochrome market, having sold a total of 4,20,000 units
(inclusive of OEMs). Indian electronics major BPL, ViewSonic and Sony also entered the
market last year, adding to the tough competitive conditions in the market, but in the
bargain offering more choice to the end-users. Digital monitors gained acceptance in
the market and replaced analog counterparts in majority of new buys during the fiscal
1998-99.
Hard disk drives–market glut forces out sole
Indian vendor
The hard disk drive sales, which is closely related to PC sales, saw a total of 9,42,000
units sold in the market with a 60% OEM share. Excluding OEMs, in all about 3,76,800
branded hard disk drives were sold at a value of Rs 226.35 crore. Seagate, Quantum,
Samsung and Western Digital, which operate through distribution majors, tried to
consolidate their positions in the marketplace during the last year. Seagate established
itself as the leader in the hard disk segment, followed by Samsung and Quantum. With a
direct presence in the country, it would be interesting to watch the performance of
Samsung which enjoys a strong brand equity in the Indian market. The market also witnessed
a shift from 3GB to 4.3GB at the entry level, and higher capacity products in the market,
with significant price drops almost every quarter.
On the exports front, JTS Technology, the only manufacturer
of hard disk drives in the country closed operations, thereby causing a drop in the
exports turnover. The company which had recorded a turnover of Rs 593 crore in 1997-98,
shut shop with a total of Rs 5 crore, resulting from a glut in the worldwide hard disk
market, inventory pile-up and labor problems.
Keyboards-shifting keys
Once shifting keys a taken-for-granted product, last year the keyboard segment recorded a
total of Rs 55 crore, translating to a sale of 2,49,305 units. The market saw a shift from
cherry to membrane technology keyboards, thanks to price points almost half the cost of
cherry. Nevertheless, TVSE commanded a 40% marketshare of the total number of units sold
under the TVS Gold brand name, available with laser-etched characters. Following TVSE were
Vintron and Amkette.
The accessories and consumables business also did well in
the last year, with a boom in the home segment, increase in multimedia content and color
usage, and the proliferation of internet. Sound cards, speakers, mice, cabinets, CD racks
etc saw more sales in the home arena. In all, the peripherals industry has made its mark
in the IT industry, with each of the product lines having grabbed a distinct identity,
size and stature of its own. With the same trend continuing, it would be interesting to
see which players steal the show next year. DQ
Peripherals Market Trends
1998-99 | 1997-98 | ||||
Value (Rs lakh) |
Share % |
Value (Rs lakh) |
Share % |
Value Growth % |
|
Impact Printers |
24957 |
38.0 |
22636 |
42.7 |
10.3 |
Line Printers |
5735 |
8.7 |
3377 |
6.4 |
69.8 |
Inkjet Printers |
15050 |
22.9 |
10800 |
20.4 |
39.4 |
Laser Printers |
19946 |
30.4 |
16252 |
30.6 |
22.7 |
Total Printers | 65688 | 45.9 | 53065 |
64.5 |
23.8 |
Others |
77402 |
54.1 | 29183 |
35.5 |
165.2 |
Total | 143090 | 100.0 | 82248 |
100.0 |
74.0 |
Others includes keyboards, monitors, hard disk drives, cd
drives, scanners, UPS
Top 5 Printer Vendors
Company | Units | Value (Rs lakh) |
HP |
200030 |
27631 |
TVS Electronics |
104661 |
6787 |
Wipro |
111240 |
10710 |
Epson |
79018 |
7445 |
Xerox |
17140 |
2157 |
Total Market |
516372 |
41498 |
Top 3 Impact Printer Vendors
Company | Units |
Value (Rs lakh) |
TVS-Electronics |
104661 |
6787 |
Wipro |
93282 |
9482 |
Epson |
51450 |
5250 |
Total Market |
143090 |
10724 |
Top 3 Inkjet Vendors
Company | Units |
Value (Rs lakh) |
HP |
149000 |
9996 |
Epson |
27568 |
2195 |
Wipro |
17958 |
1228 |
Total Market |
225535 |
15050 |
Top 3 Laser Vendors
Company | Units | Value (Rs lakh) |
HP |
51030 |
17635 |
Tektronix |
685 |
322 |
Xerox |
2780 |
1267 |
Total Market |
56695 |
19946 |
Top 3 Monitor Vendors
Company | Units |
Value
(Rs lakh) |
Microtek |
168000 |
8568 |
Samsung |
112000 |
6048 |
LG Electronics |
39200 |
2744 |
Top 3 Keyboard Vendors
Company | Units |
Value (Rs lakh) |
TVS Electronics |
140887 |
1196 |
Vintron |
100000 |
1210 |
Amkette |
80000 |
960 |
Top 3 HDD Vendors
Company | Units |
Value(Rs lakh) |
Seagate |
232000 |
13920 |
Samsung |
90000 |
5400 |
Quantum |
4346 |
259 |
Top 3 Scanner Vendors
Company | Units |
Value(Rs lakh) |
Umax |
22000 |
2110 |
HP |
13500 |
2020 |
Xerox |
2624 |
20 |
DATAQUEST