Indian PC market grows 34.6% in Q2, 2004: Gartner

The Indian PC market registered a growth of 34.6% shipping more than 7,60,000 units in the second quarter of 2004
according to Gartner, Inc. This includes desktops, notebooks and servers. India garnered 9.23% market share
in the APac region. 

"Healthy economic conditions coupled with increase in run-rate business resulted in a good second quarter this year. The
election quarter and expectation of further reduction in prices due to the financial budget
caused a marginal halt in desktop purchases by consumers during the last two weeks in June. But this did not really impact the overall upward trend in
purchases" said Gartner India Analyst-Computing Systems, Vinod Nair.

"Consumer, education and small and medium business contributed a large part of the shipment this quarter," he added.

According to Gartner, while desktops registered 32% growth, notebooks grew steadily at 123%. Notebooks constituted 5%
of the total shipments this quarter. Nair commented, "Narrowing price differential between desktops and
notebooks has catalyzed notebook purchases especially within the small and medium businesses segment". He further said, "The next step for
vendors would be to provide attractive finance schemes with monthly installments
comparable to those of consumer durable goods. This will increase affordability and further expand the PC buying audience."

From a market share perspective, HP maintained top position with 14.9% followed by HCL with 11.9%. According to
Gartner, increased focus on the consumer segment has helped both these players increase their market shares. 

IBM also improved its market share this quarter with better business from the medium business segment. Gain in market share
for these vendors has come at the cost of the white-box assemblers. 

APac PC market shipments in the second quarter 2004 increased 16.5% compared to a year ago, equivalent to 2.1%
sequentially. China, India and Thailand remained the key engine of growth in the region, with growth rates exceeding
30 %. PC shipments from the three countries make up 60% of total PCs shipped in
APAC.

CyberMedia News

Mumbai