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New Delhi, July 11

BEATING expectations, sales of personal computers in India grew by 37 per cent in 2002-03 to touch 2.3 million as corporates and Governments went on an overdrive on computerisation.

According to the IT industry performance annual review by Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT), sectors such as telecom, banking and financial services, manufacturing and IT-enabled services, along with the Central and State Governments, fuelled growth of PC sales in the last fiscal.

MAIT had earlier predicted that PC sales in 2002-03 would be around two million units, up by 20 per cent from 1.6 million. The domestic industry's focus on low-cost computing devices and increasing sales in smaller towns and cities also helped notch up a higher-than-expected growth in 2002-03.

Buoyed by the positive trends, MAIT has forecast that the IT market would grow by 18 per cent in the current year and PC sales are expected to cross 2.7 million units.

"The growth in the IT market that we witnessed in 2002-03 continues undiminished well into 2003-04. This will help bolster the confidence of the IT industry in India, especially the domestic players. With the recent increased focus of the Government on the hardware sector, we are hopeful that the industry will flourish," said Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director of MAIT, at a press conference here today.

The bi-annual survey of MAIT, conducted by leading market research agency, IMRB, after surveying 37,500 respondents in 16 cities, revealed that market share of unbranded and smaller/lesser know brands remained at 46 per cent of the total PC sales in the year.

Domestic brands such as HCL and Wipro, which had a share of 19 per cent last year, staged a strong comeback to garner a 26 per cent market share in 2002-03, at the expense of multinational brands such as IBM and HP whose share shrunk to 28 per cent from 35 per cent in the previous year.

While domestic brands grew by 88 per cent in the year, the multinationals recorded a drop of 10 per cent.

The MAIT-IMRB survey found that both the business as well as the home segment witnessed robust growth in 2002-03, with the former accounting for 81 per cent of the total market with a growth of 37 per cent.

Sales to smaller towns and cities continued undiminished in 2002-03 as well, as in the previous year. As much as 35 per cent of total PC sales came from Class B and C cities, registering a growth of 63 per cent. The top four metros contributed 53 per cent of the total PC sales, down by one percentage point from 2001-02.

Intel and Microsoft ruled the Indian PC industry with Pentium processors and Windows operating systems, making up for as much as 85 per cent and 86 per cent of the market. Linux accounted for two per cent, the survey showed.

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