Driven By Demand For Portables, India PC Mkt Records Growth

The India PC market shipments for Q3 2012 (July – Sep) stood at 2.99 million units i.e. a sequential gain of 4.9 percent over the previous quarter while the year-on-year drop was noted to be at 5.4 percent.

Consumer demand was noted to be firm in Q3 2012, as the Indian consumer continued to be resilient to challenges such as economic slowdown and high inflation. The sequential (Q-o-Q) growth for Consumer PCs were noted be at 13.5 percent while the year-on-year drop was noted to be at 0.9 percent. According to Kiran Kumar, Sr. Analyst at IDC, “Consumer demand for Notebooks is emerging as the sole bright spot in the India PC market, even as the Commercial PC market continues to be bucked down by economic slowdown. Uncertain investment environment continues to be a major letdown for commercial PC buyers who remained to be cautious with their spending in Q3 2012.”

In terms of vendor share, Lenovo sustained its lead with a 16.9 percent market share in Q3 2012. HP took the second place with a 15.6 percent share, closely followed by Acer with a share of 15.5 percent in Q3 2012. “Fulfilments for the ELCOT Notebook project continued to drive Lenovo and Acer to take the top places in the India PC market respectively. HP sustained its dominance, specifically in the consumer PC market. Launch of new series of Notebooks in the entry and mid-price band segment, helped the vendor fuel its growth in Q3. Further, channel linearity and seasonality supplemented their marketing investments and channel engagement efforts to boost their growth in Q3 2012,” commented Kiran.

Venu Reddy, Research Director, IDC commented, “Despite having a well spread festive season in Q4, we expect the overall demand for PCs to be weaker and anticipate enterprise users to remain wary about their spending in Q4 2012. A shift in the share of voice through ads and campaigns, for products such as TVs and other consumer goods is pretty evident owing to festive buying; And a fast approaching holiday season in the ending weeks of Q4 is expected to stall the growth of PCs in the coming weeks.”