Number of PCs sold in India soaring
15 December 2000
Number of PCs sold in India soaring
NEW DELHI: Increasingly net-savvy consumers and rapidly falling
prices mean the number of personal computers (PCs) that have been
sold in India will hit the five-million-mark this month, infotech
magazine Dataquest said on Thursday.
And that figure is expected to double to 10 million by January 2003,
the magazine said.
The first desktop was launched in India in 1984, when just 1,200 PC
units were sold, the magazine said. The country crossed the annual
one million PC sales threshold in 1999.
The Indian PC industry is forecast to ship 1.7 million units this
year. By 2004, some five million units are expected to be sold
annually, the magazine said.
The magazine said the Internet and falling prices have "fuelled a
mushrooming home and small office market for the PCs."
During the early 1980s, computers were being sold at Rs 200,000 each.
Now a multinational branded multimedia PC is available for less than
Rs 35,000.
A survey by International Data Corp in July listed India as the
fastest growing PC market in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding
Japan.
The Indian market has seen local assemblers stealing a march over
their domestic and multinational computer hardware rivals, Dataquest
said.
Over 50 per cent of total PC shipments were now from unbranded
manufacturers, the magazine said. Four years ago, they accounted for
less than 40 per cent of the market, it said.(Reuters)
http://www.timesofindia.com/today/15info6.htm
