• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Notebooks fuel growth; 74% sales from business segment

Kamal Narang

Sales surge: (From left) Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, MAIT, Mr Mukul Singhal, President, MAIT, Mr Bhupendra Mathur, Sr. VP & Executive Director, IMRB International, and Mr Rajesh S. Kurup, Associate Vice-President, BIRD at a press conference in the Capital on Thursday. —

Our Bureau

New Delhi, July 19 Fuelled by 97 per cent growth in notebook market, the personal computer sales in the country crossed 6.3 million units in 2006-07, a growth of 26 per cent over the previous year. However, the sales clocked in FY07 fell marginally short of the target of 6.5 million units projected by hardware association MAIT at the beginning of the year, owing to a slowdown in SME buying.

The good news is that the market is expected to sell 8 million PCs in 2007-08, a growth of 27 per cent year-on-year. According to annual industry performance review released by Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT), the market, in 2006-07 was led by a high growth in notebook segment at 97 per cent with sale of over 8.5 lakh units, while desktops grew by 19 per cent with sale of 54.90 lakh units in 2006-07.

During this period, the business segment accounted for 74 per cent of the total PC sales, registering a growth rate of 18 per cent year-on-year. While the sales to factory locations and also to SMEs were poor, sales to large establishments witnessed a robust growth of 69 per cent.

E-governance activities led to 126 per cent increase in Government consumption. Household consumption of desktops grew by 23 per cent, accounting for 26 per cent of the total desktop market, with sales crossing 1.40 million units.

“Demand was highest from the telecom, banking, and financial service sectors, education and BPO/IT-enabled services, and rose also on account of e-governance initiatives of the Government. The mood in the IT hardware industry was buoyant in the face of rising demand arising on the back of industrial and infrastructure growth as well as rising incomes and falling prices of IT products. Domestic demand is likely to gain further momentum in 2007, which has been declared the year of broadband,” the MAIT Executive Director, Mr Vinnie Mehta, said at a conference.

Multinational brands accounted for 39 per cent of the total desktop market in 2006-07 registering a growth over 35 per cent share last year. The proportion of Indian brands fell from 28 per cent to 23 per cent. The assembled PCs and unbranded systems witnessed a growth of over 22 per cent in absolute unit sales accounting for 38 per cent of the total PC sales in 2006-07, up from earlier 37 per cent.

Giving details of the regional buying pattern, MAIT said that the North followed by the West led the desktop consumption accounting for 31 per cent and 27 per cent of the market, respectively. Sales in the North grew by 59 per cent, while in the West it grew by five per cent over 2006-07. Desktop consumption in the East increased by 53 per cent accounting for 18 per cent of the market- a reflection of heightened IT activities in the region. The Southern States, however, witnessed a decline of 12 per cent in the desktop sales – accounting for 24 per cent of the market.

The number of active internet entities increased to 6 million subscriptions by March 2007, while the figure was 4.12 million units in March 2006. Internet penetration in top 22 cities was 46 per cent among businesses and 17 per cent amongst households.

Related Stories:
PC sales for Q3 up 28%
PC sales to cross 6.5 m: MAIT

More Stories on : Hardware | Trends | Performance

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
RCom sells 5% stake in tower biz

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line