PC sales surge by 7.7% in Q1

The India PC market shipments for Q1 2012 (January – March) stood at 2.63 million units - a sequential gain of 7.7 per cent over the previous quarter while the year-on-year growth was noted to be at 3.5 per cent

According to Kiran Kumar, Sr. Analyst at IDC, ''The growth in PC volumes are reflective of the rise in consumption levels and investment activity for PCs in the recent past. A spurt in commercial spending was backed by a revival in consumer sentiment towards March".

The assembled PC (white box) market continues to reel under pressure on the price front owing to a significant surge in hard disk prices and subsequent shift in  consumer purchase towards portable PCs.

The assembled PC market has dipped to 37.6 per cent share of the overall desktop PC business in Q1 2012 compared to 45.4 per cent share as noted in Q1 2011.

Figure 1: Vendor Share of overall PC Market (% of shipments)
Lenovo	15.8
Dell	15.0
HP	14.9
Others	54.3
Total	100.0
Source: IDC Quarterly PC Tracker, Q1 2012

 In terms of driving factors, Dr. Adwaita Menon, associate research director, IDC, commented, "Commoditisation is driving growth into semi-urban markets, which have shown faster growth than metros. Vendors are focusing on high-margin products such as all-in-one or single piece PCs and small portables to maintain the growth momentum and margins".

Backed by one of the biggest deals in India from lectronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited, Lenovo clinched the top spot in the India PC market with a 15.8 per cent market share in Q1 2012.

Dell secured the second spot with 15 per cent share, followed very closely by HP with a 14.9 per cent share. ''Dell continues to retain the brand recall amongst customers.

However, HP's feet-on-street approach to pro-actively engage channel partners has paid off well in the recent past. Further a good balance of product mix at attractive price bands has helped HP grow higher than the market average in Q1'' comments Kiran.