India IT Sector High On PC Sales

MAIT, the body representing India’s IT hardware, training and R&D services sectors, has announced the findings of its Industry Performance Review for the Financial Year 2010-11. The total PC sales between April 2010 and March 2011, with desktop computers, notebooks and netbooks taken together, were 9.31 million (93.1 lakh) units, registering a growth of 16 per cent over the last fiscal. The sales of desktops stood at 6.03 million (60.3 lakh) units registering a growth of nine per cent. Notebooks and Netbooks taken together recorded a consumption of 3.28 million (33 lakh) units, growing thirty-one per cent over the last year. Given the rise in disposable income and the stability of jobs in the country, PC sales are expected to cross 12.60 million (126 lakh) units in FY 2011-12, growing about thirty-five per cent.

“The overall IT Hardware Industry scenario is good and stable as it witnessed growth across all the products. The year 2010-11 has indeed been a great year for the Indian IT hardware market as the sales have really picked up across all product segments thanks to the stable economic growth and the increase in disposable income despite being inflation playing a docile factor. The growth seems to be consolidated and it’s bound to grow from here on. The industry is hopeful that the overall PC sales will cross 12.6 million units in FY 2011-12, registering a 35 per cent annual growth, given the conditions of increasing mobility among the consumers.”

The annual MAIT Industry Performance Review – ITOPs, conducted by India’s leading market research firm IMRB International is a survey of the IT hardware sector’s efforts to manage the business environment, gauge the market potential and consumer trends. This round of the study involved face-to-face interviews with over 15,000 respondents selected randomly across 22 cities in India. The MAIT-IMRB study was initiated in 1996-97 and encompasses five broad product segments — computers, networking products, printers, other peripherals and Internet connections. Apart from the yearly review, a supply-side estimation module is used to monitor industry performance every half-yearly, alternating with the annual review.

Some salient findings of the 2010-11 Study are given below.

The Notebook Market:

Notebook sales, which posted a remarkable growth last year (61%), went in to the consolidation mood by posting a healthy growth rate of 31% over 2010-11. This growth was primarily driven by the Household segment, which accounted for about 57% of the total Notebook sales and registered a growth of 32% during 2010-11 over the previous year.

Similar to the last year, the contribution among lower SEC’s (SEC B and SEC C) was on the increase contributing around 44%, but this it has mainly come from SEC C which is an encouraging sign among hardware makers. But SEC A still leads the contribution pack with 56%.Notebook sales among Establishments during 2010-11 ended with a growth of 27%.The growth has mainly come from Large Establishments posting a significant growth rate of 56% and contributing around 54% of Notebook sales. Netbook sales crossed the 3 lakh unit mark for the first time, registereing an impressive growth of 80% over the same period last year. The Netbook sales were largely driven by the Household segment which accounted for almost 3/4th of total netbook sales during 2010-11.

The Desktop Market:

Market segmentation by businesses vs. household consumption: For the first time in the market , the market size of Desktop PC has been exactly split-up in two pie’s as both Household and Establishment contributed 50% to the total Desktop PC sales.

Households contribution to the Desktop market increased to fifty per cent of the total desktop market during 2010-11 from about a 42% during the previous year. With this, households also registered a growth of 30% during 2010-11 over the previous year.

Market segmentation by town-class: The top four metros, accounted around 30% of the total desktops purchased, while the Class B cities accounted for thirteen per cent of the market. Consumption in top four metros grew by a meagre 6 per cent, while that in Class B cities it grew remarkably by seventy-six per cent. Smaller cities, contribution has decreased from 61% to 57% but still managed to post a flat growth of 2%.

The Server Market:

During the year 2010-11, sales of Servers registered a decline of fourteen per cent over the last financial year. The decline is mainly accounted to the sharp decline of contribution from Medium scaled Establishments going down from 42% to 15%.

The Peripherals Market:

Overall printer sales grew by fifteen per cent during 2010-11 over the last fiscal to reach 2.87 million (28.7 lakh) units. Laser printers led the growth with a consumption of 1.13 million (11.3 lakh) units and a growth of 16% over the last year. This growth was driven by the Small and Large Establihsments which accounted for 3/4th of the sales, and registered a growth of 110% and 168% respectively.
Consumption of inkjet printers at 1.35 million (13.5 lakh) units grew by nineteen per cent. Consumption in the business segment remained flat and didn’t post any growth while those in Households registered a noticeable growth of twenty two per cent over the previous year.

Dot-matrix printers was the only printer category that registered a decline, the sales of DMP at 0.35 million (3.5 lakh) units in 2010-11 declined by three per cent over the previous year. This decline was largely driven by the Establishment segment which registered a decline of three per cent during this period. The Household segment put an impressive growth of 61% percent.

The UPS market, is again led by the households, registered a growth of ten per cent in 2010-11 over 2009-10 with 2.38 million (23.8 lakh) units in sales. Households accounted for nearly seventy five per cent of the market, whereas the Establishment accounted for the remaining twenty-five per cent.

The Internet Entities:

The number of active Internet entities crossed the thirteen million mark in March 2011- growth of thirty six per cent over March 2010. Internet penetration in the 22 cities was fifty nine per cent among businesses and twenty eight per cent among households. Dial up contributed around 47% of the total internet connection i Establishment while ISBN, Leased Line, Data card contributed around 16%,12% and 9% respectively in 2010-11.

Summary of Findings:

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# - There is wide variation in unit prices and hence the total revenue was not calculated