Home and SMB segments to drive recovery in H2

The overall India client PC market ship­ments remained flat at 7.98 million
during January-December 2008 against 8.06 million in 2007. For CY 2008, desktop
PC shipments dropped

10.1 percent while notebook PC shipments recorded a growth of 31.5 percent on a
YoY basis.

During the October-Dece­mber 2008 quarter (Q4 2008) the overall India client
PC shipments were 1.56 million units, a drop of 22.7 percent over the same
period previous year. The desktop PC shipments dropped 24.7 percent, while
notebook PC shipments recorded a 17.4 percent degrowth (Q4 2008 over Q4 2007).

During the fourth quarter Hewlett-Packard retained the top spot in the
overall India client PC market. Dell dislodged HCL from the second spot, while
HCL was third.

In terms of desktop PC shipments during Q4 2008, HP and HCL were tied at
first position, while Dell ranked third. In terms of notebook PC shipments
during Q4 2008, HP retained the top spot followed by Dell at the second spot
while Acer came in third.

“The home and SMB segments recorded the lowest drop (in percentage terms) in
CY 2008 vis-à-vis CY 2007. The measures announced by the RBI to free up credit
are expected to revive demand from these segments and a moderate recovery in
shipments may result during the second half of CY 2009,” said Sumanta Mukherjee,
Lead Analyst-Computing Products Research, IDC India.

“The industry is also resting its hopes on the infrastructure, public sector
spending and e-governance and development projects,” Mukherjee added.

“Despite these measures, CY 2009 could still see a drop in overall India
client PC shipments. Judicious inventory management, coupled with marketing
initiatives to explore the hitherto untapped 'long tail' of customers in the
Indian heartland could be the key to survival in a tough year,” opined Kapil Dev
Singh, Country Manager, IDC India.