No 'Digital India' effect, PC market records degrowth in 6 years

NEW DELHI: Despite the Narendra Modi government going gung ho about its 'Digital India' campaign, the PC market hardly seems to be enthusiatic about it, with the market recording a degrowth of 10% in sales in FY14-15, according to the figures revealed by IT hardware body MAIT in its annual industry performance review.

The overall size of Indian ICT harware market stood at $15.87 billion, registering a growth of 23.98% over the previous year. Meanwhile, smartphone sales have increased by 33% at 69.67 million in FY2014-15 over the previous year.

After six years of positive growth, the PC market has de-grown by 10%. The fall in the PC market is attributed to the fall in notebook sales, which recorded a negative growth of 15% compared to 55% last year.

At the same time, phablets recorded a whopping growth of 527% over last year at 50.8 million sales in the same period.

Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT, said: "In a country where affordability isan issue, it is important for government to provide the additional impetus to the adoption of PCs. The bigger screen of phablets make it an extremely desirable product as it bridges the gap of a multi-utility device and an entertainment device. However, it is only up to the 5.5 in screen phablets that have found acceptance. Role of tablets as a ubiquitous device for consumers is fast diminishing."

Phablets: Phablets made a huge growth of 527% over last year at 50.8 million sales and is expected to grow by 65% in the next fiscal.

Smartphones: Smartphone sales have increased by 33% over the last year at 69.67 million.

Notebook: Notebook sales recorded a negative growth of 15% compared to 55% last year.

Desktop: The desktop market has shown a negative growth of -0.4% and are expected to de-grow by 10% in FY16.

Tablet: Tablet PC witnessed a slight growth of 0.4% at 3.48 million units as against 3.35 million units in FY14.

Servers: Server sales registered a growth of 30% over the last year and is expected to de-grow by another 10% in FY 2015-16

MAIT also predicted that the overall ICT hardware market is likely to register a growth of 15% in the coming fiscal, owing largely because of a higher base.

Amar Babu, President, MAIT, said: "Phones are driving all the growth but PC is showing degrowth. The only way to arrest this degrowth is to look at ways to increase PC penetration in Indian households.

One way is by enabling infrastructure, providing low-cost loans and discount vouchers for purchasing PCs. We also see a ray of hope for PC growth in future on account of some Digital India initiatives which aims at having a digital infrastructure as a utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens."