An all round buying pushed up the sales of personal computers by 39 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2004-05 to 890,000 units, according to the data compiled by apex body of computer hardware manufacturers.
"The growth in PC sales can be largely attributed to increased IT consumption by traditional heavy spenders like telecom, manufacturing, banking and financial services. Small businesses, IT training institutes, retail sector, households and other computer centric small enterprises also showed higher consumption," MAIT said in its Quarterly Industry Performance Review.
The sales of personal computers in first quarter of 2004-05 was eight per cent lower than the last quarter of 2003-04.
The growth in sales of notebooks were also robust at 35,320 units in April-June 2004, a growth of 139 per cent as compared to the same period last year.
Servers sales grew 28 per cent year-on-year to touch 20,387 units, while market for dot matrix printers grew 95 per cent in first quarter of 2004-05 to 1,70,612 units.
In the printer category, ink jet scored the highest with sales of 1,65,339 units, though the growth in the segment was a mere 14 per cent. Sales of laser printers grew 47 per cent year-on-year to touch 40,726 units.
The market for UPS grew 43 per cent year-on-year in April-June 2004 to 1,81,250 units.
Unbranded PCs and smaller lesser known regional brands accounted for 46 per cent of the 8.9 million units shipped.
However, the share of assembled PCs in the overall personal computer declined from 53 per cent in financial year 2003-04.
MAIT has forecast that sales of personal computers in 2004-05 would cross 1.8 million units.
The industry body attributed high growth in notebook computer consumption to the steep drop in prices.
"With notebook prices matching those of PCs, they found their way into the homes and small and medium businesses.
Corporates, IT companies, financial institutions and the government were the most sought after markets for notebooks," according to MAIT.
The decrease in prices of servers sales to small and medium enterprises and smaller towns gained momentum. With increased corporate initiatives for computerisation and networking, the future for servers look healthy, MAIT said.
Resurgence in sales of dot matrix printers can be attributed to increased consumption in banking and financial sector, government, large corporates and some of the newer emergent verticals such as retail and education. Further, in April-June 04 the replacement market for dot matrix printers gathered steam adding to the sales, MAIT said.
Ink Jet printers sales grew on demand from homes while laser printers market grew on the back of replacement market.
"Drop in prices of IT products is driving the local market and we are confident that in no time it will reach critical mass. However, we need to ensure that domestic taxation is conducive to the growth of IT manufacturing industry," MAIT Executive Director Vinnie Mehta said.
"With customs duties being phased out to nil in March next year, it is critical that the government ensures uniform value-added tax at four per cent and uniform excise duty of 8 per cent on all IT products. Domestic consumption needs to be boosted by according 100 per cent depreciation to all IT products," Mehta said.
© 2026