• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

The growing proportion of the assembled/unorganised PC market is of immense concern to us," said Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director of MAIT in a statement here on Wednesday.

New Delhi , Sept. 24

SALES of personal computers (PCs) in the country in the first quarter of 2003-04 grew by 26 per cent to 6.4 lakh units as industry and Government bought more computers, a survey has said.

With robust growth prospects, PC sales in the first half of the fiscal is expected to cross 14.2 lakh units compared to an earlier forecast of 12.1 lakh units, according to the survey by Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and market research firm, IMRB.

The IT market was now expected to grow by 18 per cent during the year to 27 lakh units, MAIT said. However, the growth in computer sales does not cheer up the entire industry much since it is the unorganised sector, comprising smaller, lesser known brands and unbranded systems, that benefited from the buoyant market conditions.

The survey revealed that the share of this segment accounted for 65 per cent of the PC sales in the first quarter, higher than their share in the previous quarter. "The growing proportion of the assembled/unorganised PC market is of immense concern to us," said Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director of MAIT in a statement here on Wednesday.

He said the industry was hopeful of a speedier implementation of the draft policy for IT manufacturing, which was formulated by the Ministry of Communications and IT.

The policy aims to set right the existing anomalies in the duty structure and to give incentives for IT manufacturing and growing the domestic market.

The MAIT-IMRB survey said the growth in the first quarter can be attributed to increased IT consumption by industry verticals and corporate sectors such as telecom, banking & financial services, manufacturing and IT-enabled services.

"Apart from these traditional sectors, higher consumption was also witnessed in SMEs, IT training institutes, and computer centric small enterprises like jobbers doing data entry/DTP. Growing number of retail outlets and malls has also added to the PC consumption," MAIT said.

Major e-governance and digital divide initiatives of the Central and State Governments are also driving IT consumption in the country. In addition, the trend of increased PC purchase in smaller towns and cities, witnessed last year, continued unabated.

Smaller towns accounted for 37 per cent of the total PC sales while the top four cities generated 46 per cent of the sales.

In the first quarter, sales of notebooks, printers and UPS also registered impressive growth, MAIT said.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
Storage market up 15 pc in Q2:IDC

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line