The Hindu Business Line : PC sales touch 1.1 million units in Oct-Dec quarter

Robust growth Sale of notebooks and peripherals witnessed robust growth. With strong macro economic conditions and upbeat market sentiment, sales in the fourth quarter are expected to be buoyant.

New Delhi , April 12

Sale of personal computers (PCs) including desktops and laptops together crossed 11 lakh (1.1 million) units during the third quarter ended December 2005-06, a growth of 11.5 per cent over the 9.86 lakh units grossed in the corresponding period previous year.

However, compared sequentially the sales represent a drop of 25 per cent from 14.7 lakh (1.47 million) units grossed during the second quarter (July-September). "A lot of depreciation-related sale takes place in the month of September, and hence the drop in the sales during the October-December quarter could be owing to this purchase pattern," Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director of Hardware Association MAIT, said.

The desktop market grossed 9.67 lakh units in Q3, 2005-06, a year-on-year growth of five per cent over Q3, 2004-05. "Although it is 30 per cent lower than the sales in Q2, 2005-06, sales are expected to be buoyant in January to March as IT sales peak in the last quarter of the financial year," MAIT said.

Sale of notebooks and peripherals witnessed robust growth. With strong macro economic conditions and upbeat market sentiment, sales in the fourth quarter are expected to be buoyant, and the sales in FY 2005-06 is expected to cross 4.4 million units.

High consumption

"IT consumption continued to be dominated by industry verticals and corporate sectors such as telecom, banking and financial services, manufacturing and IT-enabled services. The consumption in these segments was largely driven by investments in software, solutions and other enterprise products. High consumption was also witnessed in SMEs, education, retail and other computer centric small enterprises," MAIT said.

In the business segment, it was primarily the banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, educational institutes, IT sector and IT related companies that were the lead consumers for desktops PCs; while in the household segment, reduced prices coupled with applications for `entertainment' and `education' fuelled the market.

"The households market that witnessed a slight slowdown in the earlier quarters has once again become vibrant," MAIT pointed out.

Fuelled by enabling factors such as drop in notebook prices and the realised benefits of mobility and space management, notebook sales touched 1,25,000 units recording 93 per cent year-on-year growth and 67 per cent sequential growth.

Assembled PCs

As per the MAIT-IMRB study the assembled PCs - the smaller lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems, accounted for 38 per cent of the PC sales in Q3, 2005-06, while the proportion of the branded PCs was 62 per cent. MNC brands accounted for 34 per cent of the market, while the Indian brands accounted for the balance 28 per cent. The printer market continued to be vibrant with consumption of laser printers growing by 91 per cent, dot-matrix printer by 2 per cent and that of Inkjet by 3 per cent.