PC sales soar, up 1.01 million units

The sales of Personal computers in the first quarter of 2005-06 (April-March) crossed 1.01 million units, said MAIT, the apex body of computer hardware manufacturers.

This is attributed to increased consumption in banking, financial services, telecom and manufacturing sectors. MAIT sees PC sales topping 2 million units in the first half of the financial year.

Aggressive pricing by vendors and higher consumption by small and medium enterprises, training institutes and wider penetration in smaller towns and cities led to increased sales during the quarter to June, the MAIT quarterly industry performance review said.

The growth in consumption of information technology products is in line with the previous year's trend, briefly interrupted in the January-March quarter of 2004-05 due to changes in tax structure. Desktop computer sales at 0.938 million units showed a 5% growth from a year earlier.

However, in line with the annual trends of subdued first quarter, sales during the June quarter saw a 5% decline from the previous quarter.Sale of notebooks, servers and peripherals also saw robust growth, MAIT said. Notebook sales rose 123% on-year and 137% sequentially to touch 80,000 units.

A steep decline in prices led to higher notebook sales from homes and small and medium enterprises, apart from corporates, financial institutes and government.

Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT, sees the market gaining momentum in the coming quarters-benefiting from lower bandwidth rates, lower PC prices and focus on local language software and applications.