The sales of PCs in India grew 8.4 per cent to 3.2 million units in the July-September quarter compared to the year-ago period on the back of higher commercial volumes from education projects.
However, on a quarter-on-quarter basis the sales declined by about 8.3 per cent over the April-June 2013 quarter.
IDC said education projects in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and a much-delayed spending in the year from the banking, financial services and insurance segment have largely skewed the overall growth in Q3 towards commercial segment.
“July and August were noted to be upbeat as lower tier channels stocked up owing to exchange rate pressures. However, excess stock mixed with poor end user demand weakened channel buying in September,” Manish Yadav, Market Analyst, IDC said in a statement.
Despite constrained spending, back-to-school season and festive demand starting Onam did drive pockets of investment amongst consumers, particularly around Portable PCs, he added.
HP sustained its leadership position with 32.3 per cent share, accounting nearly one-third size of the India PC market in Q3 2013. Lenovo stood at the second spot with a share of 13.6 per cent, while Dell took third spot with market share of 11.8 per cent during the quarter under review, according to IDC.
Further, Mr. Yadav said, “IDC expects Q4 to crumble because we anticipate seasonality and price hike to disrupt PC buying in the quarter ending December”.
Additionally, elections in Delhi, civil issues in the state of Andhra Pradesh are further expected to impact the overall buying in some of these larger states, he added.
“Vendors would have to remain careful about their inventory in the subsequent quarters as they prepare to transition to some of these new form factors,” Kiran Kumar, Research Manager at IDC said.
