Maharashtra remains the single largest market for PC shipments in India

PC Growth in India is gradually percolating into smaller towns and cities, particularly the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.

According to IDC State Wise PC research, Maharashtra remains the single largest state in the country with roughly 17.4 per cent share of shipments and with a substantial share of about 63.3 per cent in October - December quarter in 2011, though overall the western region had slipped to the third place in terms of shipments in the India PC market.

 South India held the top place in the India PC market, with Karnataka remaining the highest contributor within the region.

The north took the second place in the India PC market, where Delhi had the highest shipments, followed by Uttar Pradesh.

"Commoditisation is driving growth into semi-urban markets, which are showing much faster growth in terms of increased purchasing power, increased awareness level of products and the desire to improve living standards," said Kanwar Rahul, research manager, IDC India.

According to Kiran Kumar, senior market analyst, IDC, "South India typically boasts a few big names in the enterprise market, who continue to be top spenders in IT products. Further, the region continues to be a stronghold for non-branded PC market in India."

On the performance of the overall market for the corresponding period, the IDC reports indicates that the PC market recorded its lowest shipments in the last six quarters, disrupted largely by the supply shortage and subsequent price inflation of the hard disk drives.

Further the demand is expected to be subdued in the coming months due to the price hike impacted by factors such as volatile rupee and hard disk shortage. A recent budget announcement around tax hike (higher excise) is only expected to further drive the prices upwards.

The top vendors in PC market were identified as Dell, followed by Lenovo and HP in October - December 2011. While Maharashtra remained the largest contributor for Dell and HP, Karnataka was noted to be the top performing state for Lenovo.

HP, a market leader till calender year 2010, increasingly lost share in 2011 because of its announcement in August that it plans to spin-off of its PCs business (See: HP may float PC unit as new entity) under former CEO Leo Apothekar. Though the plan was subsequently overturned after Apothkar's departure, it ended up creating uncertainty amongst its channel partners.

HP is also battling against aggressive pricing from competitors and deal with weak consumer PC demand. Even as HP's new CEO Meg Whitman, cleared up some confusion about its PC business to say ther busines would be a part of the company (See: HP not to sell its $40.7-bn PC division).

The much awaited prediction of HP's IPG and PSG has finally been reaped as the breaking news of the day! This will help HP build synergies in its operations. With this the new entity, HP will have the biggest channel presence in India, which will help boost their reach and sales (See: Hewlett Packard to merge printing and PC divisions).