Personal computer (PC) sales missed the projections made by the Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology (MAIT) by 1.1 million units.
While the industry body had made a projection of 12.42 million units for 2012-13, actual sales were at 11.31 million.
MAIT said it was concerned about the slower growth of 5 per cent in 2012-13 compared with 16 per cent year-on-year growth in the previous year.
The industry body said that it expects the PC sales to touch 12.1 million units in the current financial year, a growth rate of eight per cent from last year. The industry body said tablet computers are cannibalising the PC market. Tablets have registered a growth of 424 per cent.
“The overall IT hardware industry scenario seems to be on the conservative side with most of the markets posting either muted growth or a decline. 2012-13 has been the year for tablet PCs with consumers preferring it over PCs as their replacement,” J.V. Ramamurthy, President, MAIT, said.
Tepid growth
Desktop PC sales grew by only 1 per cent to 6.76 million units during the period (with revenue of Rs 13,468 crore) compared with 6.71 million units in the previous year (with revenue of Rs 13,527 crore).
“The desktop market is driven only by household segment as it grew at 14 per cent over previous year. The contribution to the desktop market by household has increased from 53 per cent in 2011-12 to 59 per cent in 2012-13,” Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT, said.
Notebook sales also grew by 16 per cent to 43.08 lakh units (with revenue of Rs 11,804 crore) in April 2012-March 2013 as against 37.24 lakh units in the same period of the previous year (revenue at Rs 10,318 crore). However, sales of netbooks fell by 68 per cent to 96,335 units in the last financial year (with revenue of Rs 121 crore) as against 2.98 lakh units in the previous year (with revenue of Rs 374 crore).
The server market also fell by 2 per cent at 89,075 units last year with revenue of Rs 1,610 crore compared with 90,699 units (at revenue of Rs 1,637 crore) during April 2011-March 2012, it said.
In the printers market, while laser printers market grew by 14 per cent (15.72 lakh against 13.81 lakh units), dot matrix (2.73 lakh against 3.93 lakh units) and inkjet printers (10.83 lakh against 11.90 lakh units) markets fell by 30 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively, during last year as compared to the previous years.