The computer hardware industry, which has been seeing stagnant sales in the last three years, may finally have some reason to cheer. During the first quarter of the current calendar year, personal computer (PC) shipments from India have grown 16.3 per cent, according to data released by research firm Gartner.
India registered the second highest growth in PC shipments from Asia in the quarter ended March 2003, behind Thailand, which saw a 19.6 per cent growth in PC shipments (including desktops, mobile PCs and IA32 servers). PC shipments from India touched 6.15 lakh units from 5.29 lakh in the same period of 2002. The Indian PC market is the third largest in the Asia-Pacific region, behind China and South Korea.
While 21.73 lakh PCs were shipped from China (20.02 lakh in Q1 2002) during January-March , PC shipments from South Korea dipped to 7.16 lakh PCs from 9.2 lakh during Q1 of 2002.
Further, HCL Infosystems has emerged as the first branded player from India to record sales of 50,000 PCs in a quarter, Gartner said. HCL led the branded players with a 9.2 per cent overall marketshare.
The share of the white box market has fallen to 62.4 per cent, while the share of mobile PCs has risen to 56 per cent. Hewlett-Packard has emerged as the largest player in the high-value mobile PC segment.
"While the corporate sector showed renewed signs of buying, the government and education sectors contributed in healthy measure to purchases. End of the fiscal buying by corporates helped achieve the strong growth rate this quarter" Vinod Nair, Research Analyst - Hardware Platforms, Gartner India said in a media statement.
"While the future indications are positive, the transport strike during April and the resultant shortage of stock could impact the traditionally weak second quarter," Nair added.
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