The Hindu Business Line : Bangladesh offers PC vendors new biz opportunities: Study

Kolkata, Jan. 22 With small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Bangladesh increasingly adopting technology, PC vendors — both branded and assembled — see a huge business opportunity.

Currently, only one in ten SMBs in Bangladesh use computers.

This provides PC vendors an opportunity to focus on the huge untapped market for PCs in the country, according to a recent study conducted by the New York-headquartered Access Markets International (AMI) Partners’ Inc.

According to the study, PC adoption plans among SMBs in Bangladesh are quite “positive” and about 30 per cent of PC-owning SMBs said they would like to purchase new PCs within the next 12 months.

Study details

A sizeable number of first-time PC buyers are also likely to join in, thereby boosting the overall market for PCs in the SMB segment. The study reveals that SMBs in Bangladesh spent nearly $380 million on IT and telecom in 2007.

The Bangladesh government has also been supporting SMBs in their technology deployment. IT vendors are wooing the SMB sector for increased sales. Spending on computing and the Internet would continue to dominate IT spending among SMBs as they build a robust IT infrastructure.

Long way

The study states that despite this, however, SMBs in Bangladesh have a long way to go in terms of adoption of technologies like basic networking, high-speed access, Web sites, e-commerce, etc. Medium businesses, which are keen to focus on connectivity technologies, will spend a greater proportion of their IT budget on networking compared with small businesses.