With home markets expanding to 26.4% of total personal computer (PC) sales, PC shipments in the country reached over 2.2 million units in the third quarter of 2007, an increase of 19.7% over the corresponding period in 2006, according to Gartner Inc, a leading information technology research and advisory company.
Domestic mobile PC (laptop) sales grew 99.4% to nearly half a million in the third quarter of 2007. The desk based PC shipments grew at 7.8% to 1.72 million. This has been the highest growth in the last three quarters, driven predominantly by large brands like HP, HCL, Lenovo and Acer supported by the SMB segment, which is being seen as the new driver of desk-based PC growth in India.
The slow-down of the desk-based PC market can be attributed to negative growth of the white box segment, which has been shrinking due to the marketing onslaught of the large local and multinational PC vendors and the home market’s growing preference for mobile PCs over desk-based PCs.
"HP continues to retain its number one position, constantly widening the gap with its closest competitor HCL, through a robust growth in mobile PC shipments. Lenovo, Acer and HCL, continue to out grow the market lead primarily by the strong growth in mobile PCs and by home market sales”, said Diptarup Chakraborti, principal research analyst, Gartner’s client computing group.
“The third quarter usually coincides with the festival buying season in India - the biggest consumer spending period. However, this year, in spite of the festival buying season falling in Q4, consumer spending has not followed the conventional pattern, proof of which has been the aggressive retail sales of mobile PCs in the third quarter itself. Most leading mobile PC brands have reported a dominant percentage of their sales in Q307 coming from the consumer segment. What is worth noting here is that the tier II and tier III home segments which hitherto were almost exclusively buying desk-based PCs are now also opting for mobile PCs as well," he added.
Large format retail outlets, a recent phenomenon in the PC market, have started contributing in a big way towards driving PC sales, especially mobile PC sales in urban areas. With a major expansion of these outlets on the cards, they are expected to help draw in a large number of first time buyers.
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