Education sector drives notebook sales

Writankar Mukherjee, Kolkata, June 29, 2009
The Economic Times

After nearly seven months of bleak sales, the national notebook PC market is once again picking up. The country’s leading PC vendors such as Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell, Lenovo and Acer claim that the market is gradually bouncing back with month-on-month sales picking up from May onwards. The industry is optimistic on notebook sales growing 20-25 percent during May-July.

While bulk of the demand is coming from the education sector due to the admission season, the vendors claim even overall consumer sentiments are improving. Little wonder, the PC vendors are revitalising their business strategy and refreshing their notebook portfolio in India.

“The education sector is driving demand in the market. Moreover, a lot of consumers who were waiting in the wings for the general elections to get over are now going ahead with purchase decisions. We feel notebook sales will grow by 20 percent in April-June and thereafter upwards of 10 percent,” said HP India’s director (consumer product and marketing - PSG) Rajiev Grover.

HP, which enjoys leadership status in the national PC turf, has just launched six new notebook models. Taiwanese vendor, Acer, too, has expanded its notebook portfolio in India by recently rolling out 20 new models. The likes of Dell and Lenovo, too, are gearing up for the act.

“Despite purchasing budgets still remaining pared down compared to last year, there is a higher uptake and we have seen good traction in segments like education. There has also been long overdue refresh cycle for both laptops and desktops in the corporate segment which is triggering demand,” Dell India country general manager Sameer Garde said.

According to IDC, the Indian notebook market grew by 3 percent in the January-March 2009 quarter as compared to the October-December 2008 period. On a y-o-y basis, notebook sales saw a degrowth by 21 percent in the same period. In comparison, notebook sales in the pre-slowdown days were growing at 25-30 percent in India.