Sales down by 50 percent in Nehru Place

The Nehru Place market seems to be in a slump in the current quarter. Businesses as well as purchases are low, with even the goods not moving much. The sluggishness is after the market had seen an excellent JAS quarter.

"The market is fluctuating and what it is witnessing is sales under depression. Nobody is willing to quote any amount because there is no money left with the resellers. The prices are low and the sales have come down by 50 percent, as compared to the last quarter," said Ramesh Jain, Director, Marks Marketing Pvt Ltd.

It seems the American elections also have affected the Nehru Place market. "Since the US was the prime purchaser of RAMs, there was not much movement in the last month, due to the sluggishness in economy due to elections," explained Jain. He also informed that due to the introduction of the new US ATA 100 hard drive, there is an artificial shortage of hard disks in the market, which has resulted in the prices of HDDs going up by 35 percent.

There is another opinion that the depression is mainly a local phenomenon with the decrease in sales starting with the Dussehra holidays. "The projection of Delhi being disturbed due to the recent bandh has stopped many outstation customers to come to Delhi to make their purchases," said Saurabh Nagpal of Multilink Systems & Services.

Mahindra Kumar Aggarwal, CEO, Broadway Computers, is of the opinion that the decrease in sales is due to the general slump in the economy as well as due to international reasons such as the American elections. He informed that the prices have gone up by 13 percent for the hard disks. According to him, the sales have gone down by 50 percent as compared to the JAS quarter. This, he said is 50 percent less than the same quarter last year.

Shyam Modi, Director, Modi Peripherals Pvt Ltd, agreed with Aggarwal on sales going down by 50 percent. He added that the general slump in the economy with no money to be flouted in the business segments is being reflected in the IT sector also. He added that the market is still to catch up after the holidays in the month of October.

Ashok Taneja, MD, Softech Computers Delhi Ltd, had a different version to the story. He said that the fact that consumers are switching to the branded systems as well as the PSUs and the Central Government's insisting on the ISO 9002 certification has affected the market very badly. "Most of the resellers cannot meet the set standard and as such cannot supply to the demand." He hoped that the market would catch up by the end of the quarter, even though the sales have gone down by 30 to 40 percent.

GS Kohli, Head (Marketing), OA Compserve Pvt Ltd, said that the sales in the last two months have come down by 20 to 25 percent over the last quarter. Even when he ascribed the decrease in sales to the general weakness in the economy, he said that the delay in payment has increased to over one and half times. Kohli said that the quarter is same as it was last year but with little growth. The prices in the market are also by and large falling.

But the resellers are optimistic that the sales would catch up by the end of the quarter with the corporates going in for their annual purchasing as well as Christmas bringing in new purchases for the market. But the slump has affected to the extent that the slight increase also cannot bring the market to the glory of the last quarter.