Internet powers zoom in Indian PC sales

MAIT, which released findings of its twice-yearly survey of the country’s computer hardware sector, said the growth in PC shipments was powered by rising demand for Internet connections. "The study reveals that 52 per cent of the first time buyers in the business segment and 60 per cent of the first time buyers in the household segment bought PC along with an Internet connection," MAIT said in a statement.

Figures released by MAIT showed Internet connections had increased to 873,400 at the end of May 2000 from 348,600 at end-May 1999. Currently, industry officials estimate the number to have crossed the one million subscriber mark.

MAIT’s director Vinnie Mehta said the Internet market was expected to rise further as computer users upgraded old machines by swapping parts.

"A potential two million PCs are available for refurbishing and remanufacturing. Conservatively even if 50 per cent of that were upgraded, this would translate into a market of Rs 1,500 crore ($336 million)…," the MAIT statement said.

"This could reinforce the Internet market by an additional 600,000 connections and another 1.8 million users." The PC industry is dominated by computers assembled by small companies which mix and match components. MAIT said they accounted for 58 per cent of total PC sales in 1999/2000, up from 53 per cent in the previous year.

IT BILL: The information technology (IT) sector will get a further fillip with Union Information and Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan declaring that the IT Bill will be implemented and much-awaited bandwidth problem solved by the end of August.

The government has set a deadline of August 15 to implement the IT Bill, passed in Parliament on May 17. The government would also meet the demand for wider bandwidth by August 31, he said while participating in the inauguration of the research and development centre of the National Centre for Software Technology at the electronic city here yesterday evening. The government would have to create excessive bandwidth to take it to masses.

He claimed that once the IT Bill would be implemented it would be one of the fastest action by the Centre. The subordinate legislations was being readied, he added.

He said the Convergence Bill which would enable transmission of voice, data and video on fibre or without fibre was ready. However, later talking to newsmen he said that the Bill would not not be introduced in the coming session of Parliament. It had to be vetted by various agencies before being placed before the Cabinet for approval.

He said nearly Rs 5,000 crore investments would have to be made to keep the country in readiness to meet the demands of the future. There would be exponential growth in the sector and the number of engineering colleges had to be doubled. Even there was need for increasing the seats in the existing engineering colleges. The government was upgrading 43 colleges. The states would have to think of making it as a subject or at least offer as an optional.