The Hindu Business Line : PC market growth at 19.5 pc: Gartner

THE Indian personal computer market grew 19.5 per cent annually, and garnered an 8.64 per cent share in the Asia-Pacific region, with more than 2.5 million units shipped in 2003, according to research firm Gartner.

A Gartner-Dataquest survey said vendor Hewlett-Packard claimed the top spot, clocking 9.6 per cent overall market share, improving from 8.9 per cent last year. The company's concentration on small and medium business has paid off in both the desktop and notebook segments.

HCL finished a close second with 9.1 per cent market share in terms of unit shipment; its market share increase is due to its focus on the finance, banking and Government verticals, mainly in the second half of 2003.

IBM came third, with 6.4 per cent, marking a better performance in the notebook segment where it ranked second after HP.

Following these three were Dell Inc, Zenith Computer and `others' (the last segment claiming around 68.7 per cent market share against 73.95 per cent in 2002.)

Improved business conditions and a growing economy led to an increase in infrastructure investments during 2003, said Mr Vinod Nair, Research Analyst, Computing Systems, Gartner India. A wider range of solutions was designed for this segment, and Central and State Governments led to increased desktop and server uptake.

A noticeable fact is that sizeable deals from the medium businesses contributed significantly to the corporate business this year, he said. "Previously, a few bulk deals mainly from the large enterprises used to be responsible for the overall growth."

The compromised growth rates of 2002 steadied in the first half and accelerated through out the second half of 2003. Apart from the small and medium sector, finance, banking government verticals too contributed heavily to this growth, Gartner said.