The economic slowdown seems to have been adversely impacted the sales of personal computer (PC) shipments in India. Research and consultancy firm IDC has predicted that the PC market would remain weaker in the last quarter despite the festive season.

Personal computer shipments for the July–September quarter in India stood at 2.99 million units, showing a growth of 5.4 per cent over last year. However, sales grew 4.9 per cent over the previous quarter.

The sequential (Q-o-Q) growth for consumer PCs was 13.5 per cent while year-on-year it dropped 0.9 per cent.

Kiran Kumar, Senior Analyst at IDC, said, “Consumer demand for Notebooks is emerging as the sole bright spot in the Indian PC market, even as the commercial PC market continues to be bucked down by economic slowdown. Uncertain investment environment continues to be a major letdown for commercial PC buyers who remained to be cautious with their spending.”

In terms of vendor share, Lenovo sustained its lead with a 16.9 per cent market share, HP took the second place with a 15.6 per cent share, closely followed by Acer with a share of 15.5 per cent in Q3 2012.

Fulfilments for the ELCOT Notebook project continued to drive Lenovo and Acer to take the top places in the Indian PC market respectively. HP sustained its dominance, specifically in the consumer PC market.

Forecast

Venu Reddy, Research Director, IDC, said that despite a well spread festive season in the October-December quarter, overall demand for PCs was expected to be weaker.

“We anticipate enterprise users to remain wary about their spending. A shift in the share of voice through ads and campaigns, for products such as TVs and other consumer goods is pretty evident owing to festive buying; And a fast approaching holiday season in the ending weeks of 2012 is expected to stall the growth of PCs in the coming weeks.”

>kurmanath.kanchi@thehindu.co.in

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