Driven by strong offtake by businesses, personal computer (PC) sales in India beat projections in 2002-03 growing 37 per cent to touch 23 lakh units as compared to 16.7 lakh units sold last year, according to an annual performance review conducted by the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (Mait).Business PCs accounted for 81 per cent of total sales with an annual growth of 43 per cent, while home or consumer PC sales grew 16 per cent. Mait had projected a growth of 20 per cent with sales of 20 lakh units during the year 2002-03 ending March 31. Desi brands on fast track NEW DELHI: IN desktop computer sales, Indian brands that include national level companies such as Wipro, HCL, Vintron and Zenith grew by 88 per cent, garnering a market share of 26 per cent (as compared to 19 per cent share of previous year), MNC brands grew by 10 per cent accounting 28 per cent market share (against 35 per cent of last year) while the sale of assembled PCs grew by 43 per cent but retained 46 per cent market share. The association has now projected that computer sales will grow by 18-20 per cent in 2003-04 by clocking around 27 lakh units. Announcing the results of the industry review, Mait executive director Vinnie Mehta said, ‘‘PC sales had clocked a negative growth of 11 per cent during 2001-02 (over 2000-01), but consumption witnessed in the first half of 2002-03 gained greater momentum in the second half resulting in the current growth.’’Mait attributed the turnaround in PC sales to an increase in IT consumption by industry verticals and corporate sector such as telecom, banking, financial sector, manufacturing and IT-enabled services.In terms of the processor configuration, PC sales were dominated by Intel’s PIV chip, which accounted for 59 per cent of the market share, followed by PIII with 26 per cent. AMD, Cyrix and other non-Intel processors accounted for around 11 per cent market share. In terms of usage of operating system, 86 per cent of the overall installed PC base still runs on Windows 95/98, while Linux accounted for only 2 per cent. In servers, Linux and other non-Windows based operating systems accounted for 16 per cent, the rest being Windows-based.Printer sales grew by 7 per cent with laser printers recording a growth of 54 per cent and inkjet printers 14 per cent. Line printers touched 6,909 units, registering an impressive growth of 78 per cent.
