International BusinessPC shipments drop 19% in Jan-Mar quarter this year
Hit by the economic slowdown and low spending by the government on the information technology sector prior to the assembly elections, the personal computer (PC) shipments in the country fell by 19 per cent during the January-March quarter this year.
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IT research firm IDC said that the total PC shipment during the first quarter of 2009 was 1,679 compared to 2,072 units in the same period last year.
This however, represents a marginal increase over the previous quarter, when the PC shipments registered a decline of over 22 per cent.
In the October-December quarter of 2008, the country had registered a 22.7 per cent dip in the Year-on-Year (YoY) growth of PC shipments.
However, aided by demand from education and banking sectors the PC market witnessed a 7 per cent growth in shipments over the October-Decmber quarter of 2008.
"Though the YoY growth rate of India Client PC shipments dropped 19 per cent, this was an improvement over the previous quarter, indicating the market has perhaps already bottomed out," IDC India Lead Analyst Computing Products Research Sumanta Mukherjee said.
In spite of the overall subdued market, the total installed base of PCs in India surged to the 36 million mark. The country now has one personal computer for every 30 Indians.