The Hindu Business Line : PC sales cross 1 m in first half

SALES of personal computers (PC) in the country rose 32 per cent in the first half of this fiscal to cross a record one million units as industries such as telecom and banking and Government went on a computerisation drive.

Total PC sales in April-September 2003 stood at 12.58 lakh units (1.25 million), according to a market study by the Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) and IMRB.

"This is the first time ever the first half sales is crossing the one million mark," said Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director of MAIT, at a press conference here.

In view of the robust market conditions, MAIT has revised its growth projections for the full year to a 30 per cent growth from 20 per cent. "We now expect the sales to reach three million units as compared to 2.3 million in 2002-03," Mr Mehta said.

According to the study, titled `ITOPs', the growth in PC sales is because of increased consumption by industries such as telecom, banking and financial services, IT-enabled services as well as the Central and State Governments.

The home segment also bought more PCs in the period as prices dropped. "Entry level prices have come down to Rs 20,000 levels while notebooks are available at Rs 50,000," Mr Mehta said.

Sales in smaller towns and cities also continued to grow. Class B and C cities accounted for 50 per cent of total sales over 46 per cent, recording a growth of 42 per cent.

Assembled PCs, consisting of lesser-known brands and unbranded systems, accounted for 57 per cent of the total sales, upping the market share from 48 per cent in the corresponding period a year ago.

The share of Indian brands fell to 20 per cent from 22 per cent a year ago and that of multinational brands to 23 per cent from 30 per cent. Sales to business segment grew by 20 per cent year-on-year while the home segment sales soared by 88 per cent. The business segment accounted for 74 per cent of sales, with the home segment making up for the rest.

The study found that Intel Pentium-4 processors accounted for 66 per cent of the market, followed by Pentium III with a 14 per cent share. However, share of AMD, Cyrix and other processors grew to 18 per cent from 10 per cent in the same period last year.

Windows 95/98 had an 84 per cent share among business PCs, while Linux accounted for only two per cent. In the case of servers, Linux, Unix, Novell and other non-Windows operating systems were used by 10 per cent.

Sales of notebook computers stood at 28,822 units over 20,199 units in the same period last year.

Printer sales in the period grew by 20 per cent but servers were down by 11 per cent, the study said, adding that active Internet users increased to 1.76 million in September 2003, over 1.43 million in March 2003.

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