Internet changes, economy spur PC sales in India
by Sanjit Singh, IDG News Service\New Delhi Bureau
July 16, 1999
A spurt in the Indian economy, falling prices, and the end of a state monopoly on Internet access in November 1998 have spurred PC sales in India to top one million.
Indian PC sales stood at 1.03 million in from April 1998 to March 1999, compared with 800,000 units in the same period a year earlier, according to the Manufacturers' Association of Information Technology (MAIT), a body that represents 140 hardware vendors.
In a 40-city survey, the final results of which will be available in two weeks, MAIT found that the sharpest growth is in the no-name assembled PC segment. This segment now controls 53 percent of the total market while Indian name-brands account for 25 percent of the market and foreign brands took 22 percent of sales. Sales of assembled PCs grew at 49 percent, MAIT said, while foreign-brands sales grew at 17 percent and Indian-brand sales grew at seven percent. Assembled machines are 15 percent to 20 percent cheaper than those of Indian manufacturers, and 20 percent to 25 percent cheaper than those made by the likes of Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp. and Acer Group.
The average cost of an Internet-ready Pentium Celeron 400MHz PC in India is about $850. India has an installed base of just over three million PCs. The Indian PC market is on course to grow 30 percent in the next year, MAIT predicted, but growth could reach 50 percent if the government liberalizes imports of computer components and encourages local manufacturing.
"PC vendors have to pay high import duties for parts and components, which drives up the cost of machines," said Vinnie Mehta, director, MAIT. "A marginal difference between locally made machines and imported ones means that local manufacture is not profitable. The government needs to lower import levies on parts to encourage local manufacture and bring down prices." The assembled sector continued to flourish, he said, keeping prices low by using smuggled parts.
The India server market in 1998/99 grew to 36,000 units from 25,500 units in 1997/98, the MAIT survey said. Sales of notebooks fell 20 percent in 1998/99 to 23,000 units from 29,000 units a year ago. Sales of printers remained static at about 400,000 units, but the big change was a sharp increase in sales of inkjet coupled with a fall in sales of dot-matrix printers.
MAIT, based in New Delhi, can be reached at +91-11-6855487 or on the Web at mait.com. |
