Indian PC market rebounds in second quarter of 2014: IDC

Mumbai: Sales of personal computers in India rose 25.6% in the three months ended June to 2.55 million units compared with 2.03 units in the year-ago period on increased spending by governments in Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

The top five states by sales contributed 62.3% of the sales in the June quarter, International Data Corp. said in a report on Friday. The next six months, which includes the festive season, are likely to see a further boost in sales, the technology researcher said.

As much as 41.8% of the sales took place in southern India, where shipments grew 66.4% compared with the preceding three months. The top three vendors contributing to the region's growth were Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) with a 37.6% market share, Dell Inc. (13.9%) and Lenovo Group Ltd (13.7%). As per IDC's Q2 2014 data, HP occupies a 29.5% share of the overall PC market In India, Dell occupies a 19.1% market share, Lenovo occupies a 13.9% market share.

The market in northern India saw a marginal drop of 0.8% in terms of unit shipment compared with the preceding quarter, but witnessed a decline of 61.6% compared with a year ago.

The western region witnessed a sequential growth of 12.8% in unit shipments and a year-on-year drop of 3.5% in the second quarter of 2014. The eastern region recorded flat quarter-on-quarter growth in unit shipments while registering a year-on-year drop of 14.6% in the second quarter.

"Recent findings in our ConsumerScape surveys suggest that end-user spending is back on PCs as 66% of the respondents desire to buy PC as their next purchase against devices like smartphones and tablets," said Kanwar Rahul, senior research manager, channels research, IDC India. "Given the low penetration levels, this research suggests there is still a huge opportunity in the India PC business. HP and Dell both share more than 85% brand visibility followed by Lenovo with a brand visibility of 80-85%."

On the outlook for the third quarter of 2014, Kiran Kumar, research manager, client devices, IDC India, said, "Our mid-quarter dipstick suggests that the third quarter will be a positive quarter for the consumer PC market as the end-user demand is expected to outstrip our expectations early this quarter. Launch of affordable PCs (sub $400 notebooks) has added a fresh lease of life to the overall PC business and vendors like HP and Lenovo stand to gain from this development in Q3 2014."

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.