PC penetration in India disappointing: Kohli

Bangalore, Sep 6 (UNI) Notwithstanding the progress made in software development and exports, India still lagged far behind in personal computer penetration and the pace of expansion of the domestic market was slow, TCS Vice-Chairman F C Kohli said today.

Delivering his address at the 'NASSCOM Quality Summit-2006: Setting Benchmarks in Global Outsourcing' here, he said the domestic sales of PC was just four to five million pieces per annum, while 220 million PCs were being sold worldwide.

''Just two per cent of the world market for a country positioning itself as the global IT major is disappointing. The software industry is worth 30 billion US Dollars at present, which comprises 25 billion Dollars in exports and just five billion Dollars of domestic sales. Out of this, half is imported from outside. This should change,'' Mr Kohli stressed.

The NASSCOM-McKinsey report projected India's software market to grow up to 60 billion Dollars by 2010, of which the size of the domestic market would be a mere ten billion Dollars. This should rise to about 40 billion Dollars, he said.

Mr Kohli, the Chairman of the working group appointed by the Union Government and NASSCOM to develop software in more Indian languages, said that to broaden the domestic market, software in all the 22 Indian languages should be developed. The group, which consisted of experts from IITs, IIIT, C-DAC, was involved in the project. At present, sofware was available only in five languages -- Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Telugu and Punjabi. Seven more languages would be added this year and all the 22 languages would be covered in two years, he added.

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