PC shipments to India rise 24% in Q2 2013; weak rupee affects enterprise spend

NEW DELHI: PC shipments to India rose by 24% to 3.53 million units in April-June quarter this year helped by large orders from state governments of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, research firm IDC said on Friday.

“State-led manifesto driven spending on notebooks steered commercial investments in the India PC market in Q2 2013.

Special projects currently being executed in states like UP, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu accounted for roughly one-third of the total PC market size in Q2,” IDC Research Manager Kiran Kumar said in a statement. The market on quarterly basis grew by 30.2 % Kumar further said that organic demand for PCs in India outside special projects has weakened, which remains a cause of concern for PC vendors.

“Further, rupee slide derailed enterprise spending, as the investment decisions remained seemingly delayed across most of the verticals,” he said.

On the other hand, the consumer market in Q2 witnessed a marginal growth over Q1 2013. “Q2 had a sluggish start in April owing to inventory concerns coupled with shift in share of wallet towards commodities like Gold and other consumer devices which were riding high on tradeback schemes and other time-totime discount offers,” IDC Market Analyst Manish Yadav said.

“Further, the announcement of new tax policy i.e. Local Body Tax in Mumbai and suburban areas halted the shipment growth in May. But June largely reversed this stillness aided by back-toschool campaigns and loading of stocks across partners in preparation to the impending price hike on account of rupee volatility,” Yadav said.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) continued to lead India PC market and recorded its highest ever quarterly market share with an exceptional 34.1 per cent share in Q2 2013.

Delivering an outstanding performance, HP stayed dominant across all segments in commercial and consumer PC business in India, the statement said.