The Indian
PC market suffered a torrid final quarter of 2008, despite enjoying consecutive quarters of significant growth. The PC market as a whole still saw a growth of 7 per cent in 2008 on the previous year, shipping a total of 9.3 million units, though that growth appears meagre given the huge success of the first three quarters. Indeed, up until the end of the third quarter, the Indian PC market was seeing a 15 per cent growth, year on year.
Notebook PCs contributed to that growth, with sales up by almost 100 per cent. However, notebook sales slumped by 14 per cent in the final quarter, whilst
desktop shipments were down by 14 per cent year on year in the final quarter. These dismal
laptop and desktop results contributed to a fall of 3 per cent in final quarter PC sales in India.
The poor laptop sales during the final quarter were slightly offset by the emergence of the
mini-notebook, however. With sub Rs30,000
laptops performing best, the smaller, cheaper machines proved a popular choice as the economic recessions hits hard. Despite
Asus, HCL and
Lenovo performing strongly in this category, their final quarter sales fell by almost 50 per cent. They weren’t the only lenders to suffer, however, with
Acer and
Hewlett Packard also performing badly.