Personal computer sales grow 18% in FY10

ndia's PC sales – desktop computers and notebooks combined - grew 18 per cent to 80.3 lakh units in FY10, driven by demand revival across consumer and office segments, particularly during second half of the year.
For 2010-11, the growth rate is expected to be a tad lower at 16 per cent, with PC sales projected at 93.5 lakh units, according to the Industry Performance Review by hardware association Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT).
Interestingly, notebook sales, which stood at 25 lakh units zooming 65 per cent in FY10, are expected to cool off during FY11 to a growth of 26 per cent. At the same time, the desktop growth rate is expected to accelerate as consumption spreads to smaller cities and towns.
For the just-ended fiscal, the sale of desktops stood at 55.2 lakh units, a year-on-year growth of five per cent, whereas for the current fiscal MAIT expects the growth rate to be higher at 12 per cent.
Still, the notebook growth would continue to outpace the growth in the desktop segment this year.

“We expect the share of smaller cities in the overall consumption to go up this year. As that happens, the desktops will get a major thrust given that they are priced lower and also because the purchase of a desktop in such cities is closely linked to the child's education.
“Overall, this means that increasing consumption in smaller cities would push-up the desktop numbers in the current fiscal,” said Mr Biswapriya Bhattacharjee, Group Business Director of IMRB, which conducts the annual review on behalf of MAIT. Explaining the marginal slowdown in PC sales growth projected for FY11 (16 per cent compared to 18 per cent logged in FY10), he said,
“This is because the higher growth in the desktop segment will not fully offset the lower growth rate anticipated in the notebook category.”
Releasing the industry performance review, the MAIT President, Mr Ravi Aggarwal, noted that the impact of the global economic recession was over and that the IT industry was on a “revival path”.
For the record, PC sales had fallen 7.4 per cent in FY09, when consumption had been hit severely by slowdown in the economy.
With the growth rate pegged at 65 per cent in FY10, notebooks (inclusive of netbook sales) scripted a phenomenal comeback, driven primarily by sales to the household segment.
Households accounted for about 56 per cent of the total notebook sales and registered a growth of 83 per cent in FY10. Businesses accounted for 44 per cent of the market; it grew at 47 per cent on an annual basis primarily on account of moderate sales in the first half of the fiscal.
The findings reveal that consumption in top four metros grew 173 per cent but declined 16 per cent in the next four cities; in the rest of India it grew 48 per cent. Over 1.85 lakh netbooks were sold in 2009-10.
According to MAIT, in the desktop market, the share of informal or assembled players shrunk to 27 per cent in FY10 (against 31 per cent share in FY09). The contribution of MNC brands increased marginally to 52 per cent (51 per cent in FY09) and that of Indian brands rose to 21 per cent (18 per cent in FY09).
For desktops, the consumption in the top four metros increased 30 per cent and in Class B cities 21 per cent, while in case of smaller towns it declined 61 per cent in FY2010.
Hit by poor sales at the start of the fiscal, the server consumption for the full year FY10 fell about 15 per cent to 1.01 lakh units. Printer sales grew six per cent to 17.2 lakh units, led by laser printers. But consumption of dot matrix printers declined during the period.
“The number of active Internet entities crossed the ten million mark in March 2010. The overall Internet entities increased to 106 lakh units in March 2010, a growth of 17 per cent over March 2009,” MAIT said.