Indian PC market growth sluggish in Q1; Lenovo tops the list

A recent report by Gartner Inc. to gauge the performance of the PC market in India through the first quarter of 2012 has proved to be rather disappointing. In what can be attributed to high inflation and increased prices, the report found that the PC market growth through the aforementioned duration has been rather sluggish with Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner quoting that consumer buying accounted for 47 percent of the total PC sales in the first quarter of 2012, which is down 3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011. He added that the current market conditions, defined by high inflation and rising prices have understandably forced the end consumer to alter their purchasing decision. That in addition to the recent spurt excise and import duties had a role to play in forcing the consumer to postpone their purchases. He added, “This underlies the fact that high inflation and increased prices have forced users to either prolong the life of their devices or postpone their purchase decision. The increase in excise and import duties also played a part in decision making postponement. The delay in rate contract from DGSND (Directorate General of Supplies & Disposals) did not help market growth.”

The PC shipment market share

However, the report also found that the combined desk-based and mobile PC market in India grew to nearly 2.8 million units in the first quarter of 2012, which essentially is a 6.6 percent increase over the first quarter of 2011. Lenovo emerged to be the top vendor in the first quarter of this year, when its PC shipments grew 64 percent. The report adds that the "...partial execution of the Tamilnadu government order" helped this happen. As opposed to Lenovo's PC shipment growth, that of HP grew 21 percent, while yet another popular vendor, Dell suffered a decline by 11 percent as compared to its performance in the Q1 2011. The report further highlighted that multinational brands played a major role in the Q1 of 2012, by contributing to more than half of the total PC shipments (shipments from Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, the top 4 vendors, representing 54.5 percent of the market). HCL's PC market though, saw a decline to 5.8 percent in the Q1 of 2012, as it experienced a 13 percent year-on-year decline from the first quarter of 2011.

You can find the entire report here.