PC assemblers domestic share dips 11%

The market share of white-box assemblers in the domestic hardware market fell 11 per cent even as total shipment grew 34.6 per cent in the April-June 2004, according to Gartner India.

Market share of assemblers have fallen from 69 per cent to 58 per cent in the quarter, while that of large vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, HCL Technologies, IBM, Dell Computer, Acer, others grew from 31 per cent in the same quarter of 2003 to 40 per cent.

The growth comes prior to budget-2004 excise duty exemption for the industry which is expected to further boost PC sales and penetration in the country.

"The next step for vendors would be to provide attractive finance schemes with monthly installments comparable with those of consumer durable goods. This will increase affordability and further expand the PC buying audience," said Vinod Nair, analyst-computing systems, Gartner India.

While desktops registered 32 per cent growth, notebooks grew at 123 per cent. Narrowing price differential between desktops and notebooks fuelled notebook purchases especially within small and medium businesses segment and, resultantly, notebooks constituted 5 percent of the total shipments this quarter.

With 7,60,000 unit sales in the quarter, India now holds a 9.23 per cent market share in Asia Pacific. This includes desktops, notebooks and servers sales.

Consumer, education and small and medium business contributed a significant part of this quarter's shipment.

Top players bettered or retained their market share, and gain in market share for these vendors came at the cost of assemblers. Hewlett-Packard maintained top position with 14.9 per cent of the total sales followed by HCL with 11.9 per cent.

Increased focus on consumer segment has helped both these players increase their market shares, said Gartner. IBM also improved its market share this quarter with better business from the medium business segment.

Asia Pacific PC market shipments in April to June 2004 increased 16.5 per cent compared with the same period in the previous year with China, India and Thailand remaining the main growth-drivers.

PC shipments from three countries make up 60 per cent of total PCs shipped in Asia-Pac region.