PC sales witnesses 24.1 pc increase in Q3 of 2007: IDC

Bangalore, Dec 16: Overall client PC market in India grew by 25.1 per cent during the third quarter of 2007, year on year basis, with unit shipment being 1.8 million, IDC said today.

IDC in a release here said while desktop pcs grew by 10.9 per cent, Notebook pcs registered a 84.2 per cent growth.

In the overall Client PC (Notebooks and Desktops combined) market the rankings remained unchanged. HP retained the top spot with a market share of 21.6 per cent, followed by HCL at 12.3 per cent, and Lenovo at 10.3 per cent, in terms of unit shipments during the third quarter of calendar year 2007.

In terms of desktop PC shipments HP retained its top position with a market share of 15.2 per cent, followed by HCL and Lenovo in second and third spots, respectively.

In terms of notebook PC shipments, HP retained the top spot with a market share of 37.8 per cent during the period under review with Lenova at the second spot and Acer climbing up to take the third spot.

The release said the sale of desktops between January and September this year was 3.6 million units as against 4.42 million units for calendar year 2006. In case of notebooks the sales recorded was 1.21 million during the first nine months of 2007 as against 980,000 for the whole of last year.

Region wise north recorded a 104 per cent growth during the third quarter of calendar 2007 with the region having 31.8 per cent of the total share. East having a 9.9 per cent share of the total sales recorded a 70 per cent growth, while South having 30.2 per cent of the market grew by 80 per cent. Western region having a 28.1 per cent market share grew by 77 per cent.

According to Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, IDC India, "Portability, rather than Mobility has emerged as the 'Number 1' driver for the sustained growth in notebook PC shipments in India. Given the choice of portability, flexibility and ease of use and the narrowing of the price-performance gap that once existed between portables and desktops, consumers are almost overwhelmingly inclined to buy notebook PCs." During 3Q 2007, notebook PC shipments to the home and Small Office Home Office (SOHO) segments grew by 166 per cent year-on-year (3Q 2007 over 3Q 2006) and made up for 43 per cent of total notebook shipments. The next largest contributors to this trend were the Enterprise and Education segments.

Mr Sanjit Sinha, Associate VP, Research, IDC India stated, "In an emerging market like India there still exist many untapped pockets of opportunity for desktops, as shown by the recent signs of revival of this market. The desktop market will aim to sustain market momentum by reaching out to the untapped Small and Medium Business (SMB) enterprises, e-Governance projects and consumer infrastructure builds up in C, D and E class cities. UNI