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Personal computer makers in India are aggressively looking at the upcoming festive season to boost sales in the consumer segment, which constitutes a large chunk of the industry revenues but has been seeing muted growth.
“We are definitely expecting a spike in consumer demand during the upcoming festive season. We are looking at sprucing up the market with a combination of new products and, are coming out with a slew of good exciting offers,” said S Rajendran, chief marketing officer of Acer India.
Several personal computer makers like Acer are in the process of coming out with newer products and offers to capture the market large segment of the market that was hardly seeing any growth in the past couple of quarters.
Added Shailendra Katyal, Director, Consumer Business, Lenovo India, “Every year, the festive season offers us the opportunity to create demand for products such as tablets, PCs, laptops and smartphones. This year we aim to appeal to a larger section of society. We are enabling a richer purchase experience for customers by launching interesting offers, discounts and freebies.”
According to research and analyst firm, Gartner, the PC market (shipment) in India in the April-June quarter of 2013 grew by 14% on year-on-year basis at 3.3 million units. The growth was primarily driven by the large government contracts including the UP and Tamil Nadu government orders. However, growth in the consumer segment declined by 18% on YoY basis during the same period, primarily due to the weak consumer sentiments.
Industry analysts expect that while the consumer demand is expected to grow during the festive season, the growth of this segment is expected to be flat or with marginal year-on-year growth.
“During the festive season in the July-Sept quarter, there will be growth registered but one of the factor other than actual end user buying would be inventory pile-up. However, you may not see a very significant YoY growth in the consumer market; it could be flat or there will be a slight increase,” said Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner.
One of the biggest challenges for the major PC players during the festive season will be to keep the costs downs because of the depreciating Rupee. Already, personal computer prices have gone up across the board in the range of 6-8% with the Rupee breaching the sixty mark compared to the dollar.
“The USD -Rupee equation is giving us challenges, but you need to live with it. I guess the channels as well as the end consumers have made peace with this ‘new normal’ of not just a fluctuating Rupee but also a higher Rupee,” said Rajendran of Acer India.
“The prices going forward will have to reflect the dollar rupee equation,” he added. Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director of the manufacturer's association for information technology (MAIT), said that even though prices have gone up recently, the festive season generally attracts discounts. "That is the old formula and I expect the same this time too." He added that according to MAIT even though sales have been flat this year so far, consumer demand is growing at a steady level. "The PCs, laptops are doing well and tablets sales have been phenomenal. So in the Festive season, it should further go up."
