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Big market potential for reconditioned PCs: Study

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, July 12

INDIA has a potential market of Rs. 1,500 crores for refurbished/remanufactured personal computers (PCs), with a typical unit carrying a nominal price tag ranging between Rs. 10,000 and Rs. 15,000.

Nearly two million PCs are available for refurbishing and conservatively, even if 50 per cent of these are upgraded, it would serve two purposes -- expand the PC penetration and strengthen the Internet market by an additional six lakh connections and 18 lakh users.

This is one of the findings of the industry performance study done by the Manufacturers' Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and the India Market Research Bureau (IMRB) which was released on Wednesday.

The domestic PC market touched 1.4 million units during 1999-2000, registering a growth of 37 per cent over the previous fiscal. The increase has also been triggered by a spurt in Internet connectivity. The assembled PCs, including unbranded systems, con tinued to hold its share of 58 per cent.

The share of the MNC brands slightly grew from 22 per cent to 23 per cent, while Indian brands slipped from 25 per cent to 19 per cent.

Based on these trends, the PC shipments are projected to cross the 1.9-million mark during 2000-01, a growth of 35 per cent, according to the MAIT-IMRB study.

In PC sale, a significant growth of 57 per cent was witnessed in the household category, while in the business segment, the increase of 50 per cent was in the small industry units with less than 10 employees.

The study, which for the first time correlated PC sales to Internet connections, found that 52 per cent of the first-time buyers in the business segment and 60 per cent in the household segment bought PCs along with Internet access. The number of Interne t connections also increased from 3.48 lakhs in May 1999 to 8.73 lakhs in May 2000.

Releasing the study, Mr. Hemant Bharat Ram, President of MAIT, said ``although the IT market has been showing consistent, robust performance, it is a paradox that the manufacturing segment in the country has been gradually withering away.''

MAIT recently held detailed discussions with the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr. Murasoli Maran, and apprised him of the issues confronting the IT manufacturing industry. The Ministry has assigned MAIT an active role in the small group it has con stituted to look into the procedural problems of the hardware industry.

Mr. Bharat Ram felt that ``while the industry's overall performance has been consistent, the hardware sector should take the potential refurbishing market seriously. This would address both the price sensitivity of the entry level market as well as lead to a growth in the Internet market.''The Director of MAIT, Mr. Vinnie Mehta, said with the PC/IT market doing well, it was necessary to have a stable, accessible and economical-bandwidth and inter-connectivity of the domestic networks.

The MAIT-IMRB study has found a steady growth in the processor, printer, and networking products during the year. While the processor configurations being Pentium II and III accounted for 64 per cent of the sales, in printers, the growth was 24 per cent with unit sale at 8.35 lakhs and projected to grow by 40 per cent during 2000-01.