India PC Market Shows Early Revival Signs With 2Q CY09 Performance

The overall India PC market grew 5.2 percent during the April-June quarter of CY 2009 (2Q CY2009) to touch 1.765 million shipments over the previous quarter. For the same period (2Q CY2009 over 1Q CY2009) desktop PC shipments rose 4.4 percent, while notebook PC shipments grew 7.2 percent.

In the overall PC (Notebooks and Desktops combined) market, HP retained the top spot with a market share of 17.8 percent, followed by HCL and Dell.

In terms of desktop PC shipments, HP retained its top position with a market share of 12.7 percent, followed by HCL and Acer in second and third spots respectively during 2Q CY2009. In terms of notebook PC shipments, HP retained the top spot with a market share of 30.9 percent in 2Q CY2009; Dell retained the second spot while Acer came in at the third spot.

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Early Signs of Revival

Kapil Dev Singh, country manager, IDC India, said, “The India PC market performance in 2Q CY2009 has shown, what may be termed as early signs of a revival, as the decline in overall PC shipments year-on-year reduced from a high of 22.7 percent (4Q CY2008 vs 4Q CY2007) to 15.3 percent in the current quarter (2Q CY2009 vs 2Q CY2008). Demand was buoyant during this quarter on account of a higher off-take by the consumer and education segments.”

In terms of horizontal segments, while the SME segment responded positively during the quarter (2Q CY2008), the large and very large enterprise segments are still waiting for cues of a sustained global economic recovery. As expected, the recently concluded general elections proved to be a distraction from the government sector spending on PCs. However, with the new central (Federal) government settling down and the festive season starting earlier than usual this year, the coming quarter (3Q CY2009) presents an opportunity for vendors to spruce up their shipments performance.

Emergence of Mini Notebook PCs

In the emerging segment of mini notebook PCs, enjoying a newfound liking among home users, shipments doubled quarter-on-quarter (2Q CY2009 over 1Q CY2009).

Sumanta Mukherjee, lead PC Analyst, IDC India, said, “The Mini Notebook PC segment saw the emergence of new entrants like BenQ and Samsung, while existing players like Acer, Asus, and Lenovo moved to consolidate their positions. With more vendors slated to enter this space and with the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS lined up for October 2009, the India mini notebook PC space could see a lot more traction in the forthcoming quarters.”