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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (3860)	3/7/1999 7:19:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12475

PC sales in India to grow about 40% current fiscal year-says Intel. Sunday March 7, 3:08 pm Eastern Time INTERVIEW-Intel sees India PC sales up 40 pct. By Y.P.Rajesh BANGALORE, India, March 7 (Reuters) - Intel Corp. (Nasdaq:INTC - news) expects India's personal computer market to grow about 40 percent in 1999/2000 (April-March) over the previous year, a senior company official said. ''Despite the disappointment of the (federal) budget, I would safely say that I expect the market to grow at the same pace as in 1998/99...about 40 percent,'' Atul Vijaykar, Intel's director for South Asia told Reuters in an interview over the weekend. ''In the next 12 months, I expect to see the information technology culture finally seep in,'' he said. ''Businesses are adopting infotech more aggressively as it is a way of streamlining business in a competitive environment...and then there is electronic commerce (and) the Y2K issue.'' Vijaykar, whose company's microchips power over 85 percent of the country's computers, said the Indian federal budget presented last week was disappointing as the computer industry was expecting a reduction in excise duties, and ''the budget actually increased excise by two percent.'' This, he said, would increase the cost structure of PCs by ''a couple'' of percentage points, but would not make a dent in the number of computers sold. In November, Intel had forecast sales of between 1.2 million and 1.5 million PCs during 1998/99. Vijaykar said that target would be reached as sales during the last three months of 1998/99 (January-March) continued to be good. ''1998/99 has been a very good year,'' he said. ''The small business and home market has been very robust, while the corporate market has been sluggish.'' Computer sales to the corporate sector, he said, would grow in 1999/2000. ''It will be partly due to an expected industrial recovery and partly because firms cannot defer tackling the millennium bug problem.'' Vijaykar said the small business and home market segment would grow on the back of recently privatised Internet access services, which would bring cheaper prices and higher penetration. Vijaykar said Intel was looking at investing in several Indian companies. ''We have a lot of proposals which are being deliberated upon. But the investment will be in Internet-related companies, E-commerce companies, or companies that are involved in creating high-end visual content software...Frankly, anything that is new and is consistent with our longer-term perspective.'' biz.yahoo.com