PC sales cross 6.4 lakh units in Q1: MAIT

MAIT, the apex body representing the hardware, training and R&D services sectors of the IT industry, has announ-ced its findings of its quarterly industry performance review for the quarter April-June of this fiscal 2003-04. 

The buoyant IT consum-ption witnessed in FY 2002-03 continued undiminished in Q1 2003-04. With robust growth prospects, the IT market is exp-ected to grow 18 per-cent in FY 2003-04 over that in the last fiscal. PC sale is expected to cross 27 lakh (2.7 million) units.

The growth in PC sales can be largely attributed to increa-sed IT consumption by indu-stry verticals and corporate sectors such as telecom, banking & financial services, manufacturing and IT-enabled services. Apart from these traditional sectors, higher consumption was also witne-ssed in SMEs, IT training insti-tutes, and computer centric small enterprises like data entry and DTP operators. Growing number of retail outlets and malls have also added to the PC consumption. Major e-governance and digital divide initiatives of the Central and State govern-ments are also driving IT consumption in the country. In addition, the trend of increased PC purchase in smaller towns and cities, witnessed last year, continued steadfast. 

Aggressive pricing by the PC vendors has also helped improve the PC penetration, especially, in the households and the SME segments.

The other interesting find-ing is assembled market for PC is growing again and it controls 65 percent market share, which is concerning the organized sector. Meanwhile, the hardware sector seeks implementation of the ‘draft’ hardware policy for sustained growth.

DQW News Bureau