Mr Vinnie Mehta

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NewDelhi/Bangalore Sept 25 Fuelled by IT consumption in industry verticals and increased purchase by households, the personal computer (PC) sales including desktops and laptops crossed 1.7 million during the first quarter of the current fiscal, over 47 per cent rise compared with 1.20 million units notched in the year-ago period.

Releasing the findings of its industry performance review for the quarter April-June of fiscal 2007-08, hardware association MAIT said that with strong macroeconomic conditions and upbeat market sentiment, the sales in second quarter are expected to be buoyant.

PC sales are expected to touch 7.5 million units in 2007-08. While desktop sales were expected to cross 6.25 million units, note book sales were projected to be in the range of 1-1.25 million for the year, up from the previous year’s 5.43 million and 0.3 million respectively, said Mr Vinnie Mehta, Executive Director, MAIT.

With prices of hardware coming down, MAIT expects a robust demand from the home segment and from traditional verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance, government, telecom and education, Mr Mehta said.

“The demand in the April-June quarter also rose on account of e-governance projects at the Centre and various States. Apart from these traditional sectors, high consumption was also witnessed in SMEs, education, retail and other computer-centric small enterprises,” Mr Mehta said.

In addition, the trend of increased PC purchase in households, smaller towns and cities as witnessed over the last few quarters, continued steadfast.Aggressive pricing by PC vendors has also helped improve the PC penetration, especially in the households and the SME segments.

Interestingly, the quarter saw the resurgence of the home market. “Other than Delhi and Mumbai, PC consumption in households exceeded that in the enterprise segment. The education vertical is emerging as another key driver for PC consumption in the country. With privately managed schools and colleges adopting PCs at a brisk pace, the PC penetration in these segments is expected to gain traction in the near future," it said.

MAIT, however, pointed out that while IT consumption in the retail sector was becoming vibrant, a large majority of the market remained to be tapped as adoption remained limited to the organised retail.

During the quarter, the desktop market grossed 1.4 million units, a growth of 38 percent over the first quarter of 2006-07. However, compared sequentially, this is 20 percent lower than the sales in Q4 of 2006-07 (January-March) primarily as the sales tend to peak in the last quarter of a financial year.

Notebook sales touched 367,000 units recording 104 per cent year-on-year growth and 63 per cent sequential growth. “The high growth in notebook consumption can be attributed to the drop in notebook prices and the additional benefit of mobility and space management. With notebooks now being available at prices of sub-Rs 25,000, they are increasingly finding their way into the homes and SMEs,” MAIT said adding that falling prices had also prompted home users to upgrade from desktop to notebook resulting in additional growth of the notebook market.

As per the MAIT-IMRB study, the assembled PCs – the smaller lesser known regional brands and unbranded PCs— accounted for 40 per cent of the PC sales in Q1 of 2007-08, while the proportion of the branded PCs was 60 per cent. MNC brands accounted for 39 percent of the market while the Indian brands accounted for the rest 21 per cent.

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