PCs,notebook

Kolkata, Feb 1(UNI) Fuelled by a strong demand in telecom, banking and financial services sectors and a drop in PC prices, India's computer sales, desktops and notebooks combined, touched 2.96 million units in the first half of fiscal, a growth of 19 per cent over the same period in the previous year, according to a Industry Performance Review by MAIT.

The MAIT review said the buoyant buying sentiment is likely to continue in the second half, pushing PC sales for the full year 2006-07 to 6.5 million units, about 30 per cent jump over five million units sold in 2005-06.

The forecast include 5.6 million units of desktop sales and 0.9 million units of notebook sales. This would take India's total installed base for computers to 20 million.

Industry Performance Review released by the Hardware Association also said that the desktop sales stood at 2.53 million units, up by 8 per cent over 2.3 million units sold in the year-ago period, even as notebooks market grew with sales of 4.29 lakh units, growing at a fast pace of 180 per cent over the same period last year.

For the second quarter July-September, the overall PC sales stood at 1.75 million units, registering a growth rate of 19 per cent year-on-year,the report mentiond.

Consumers in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, continued to show a healthy growth for desktops, computers, driving the desktop consumption in the top four metros by 25 per cent while consumption in the next four cities-IT hubs of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, as well as Ahmedabad-declined 48 per cent.

The rest of the country accounted for 58 per cent share of the desktop sales, growing their market by 14 per cent.

The share of households continued to be virtually stagnant in the desktop market, accounting for 23 per cent of the sales, and ceding close to 77 per cent of the market to the corporate and business sector.

In absolute terms, the household accounted for sales of 5.72 lakh units, even as businesses lapped up 19.58 lakh units.

The MAIT review said the assembled PC-the smaller and lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems--witnessed a growth of over 27 per cent and an increase in marketshare, accounting for 40 per cent of the total PC sales.

UNI