The Hindu Business Line : Indian PC market grew 35 per cent in Q3: Gartner

THE Indian PC market grew 35 per cent in the third quarter of the calendar year 2004, shipping more than 8.85 lakh units, said research firm Gartner in a news release. India also perhaps showed the highest growth in the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan).

Desktop shipment grew annually by 32 per cent during the quarter, and notebook shipment 126 per cent.

"This is in confirmation with the growth trends observed during the first half of 2004," said Gartner. "Small and medium businesses and finance banking continue to be the growth drivers.

"While the corporate market continued to look healthy, top vendors are now seen to be aggressively targeting the premium end of the consumer segment," said Mr Vinod Nair, Analyst, Computing Systems, Gartner India.

On the vendor front, it was Hewlett-Packard leading the pack, with a market share of 14.3 per cent during the quarter. HP was followed by HCL (12.1 per cent), IBM (8.3 per cent), Dell (3.8 per cent), Acer (3.4 per cent).

"Others" continued to be the dominant vendor segment, with 58.2 per cent market share. However, their market share has come down from the year-ago figure of 67.2 per cent for the third quarter of calendar year 2003.

On the notebook market, Mr Nair said: "Local entrants are expected to gain some market share in the short term with price-point advantages over branded players, though quality of after-sales service will be highly questionable."

"Some telecom service providers are now tapping avenues to bundle the desktop with Internet service, making it available at affordable monthly plans," he said. "If priced properly, this will be a good move to increase desktop penetration and to grow the market in India."

From an Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) perspective, 8.5 million units of PCs were shipped in the quarter, representing an increase of 9.8 per cent from the same year-ago quarter.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the professional market grew 15.7 per cent, and the home market 2.2 per cent.

Desk-based PC growth was 6.5 per cent and mobile PC growth 26.1 per cent. In India, the small shipment base of mobile PCs coupled with strong demand propelled growth rates of over 100 per cent, said Gartner.

Lenovo was the leading vendor in the Asia-Pacific, with a market share of 11.9 per cent, followed by Hewlett-Packard whose market share was 10.1 per cent.