Against all odds, PCs seem to be selling well in India

India has shown a refreshing growth in the shipments of personal computers in what is another example of it bucking global trends. About 2.2 million personal computers were shipped in the country during the period between April and June, marking a 7.2 percent growth over the quarter before that. Despite the increase in demand in Q2 2016, the number — which includes PC shipped to enterprises as well as to consumers — are still 2.2 percent lower than what they were during the same period a year ago.

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PCs shipped to consumers saw an even impressive quarterly growth of 14.5 percent, seeing about 1.05 million units moving during this period. The improvement in shipments has been credited to the Ramadan festive season as well as the government’s push to hike salary of its employees, said marketing research firm IDC.

The PC shipment growth in India comes at a time when PC manufacturers are struggling to keep sales growing in many regions. Worldwide PC shipments saw an annual decline of 4.5 percent during the period between April to June. An annual drop of 11.5 percent was also witnessed during the period between January and March.

As for vendors, India’s market is a little different from that of the world. Top OEMs Lenovo, HP, and Dell together accounted for two-third of the market share. Though Lenovo is the number one computer vendor globally with a little over 21 percent market share, the Chinese company had to settle for the third spot in India with a little over 16 percent share. HP leads the pack with 28.4 percent (up 3.4 percent quarter-on-quarter), whereas Dell is at the second position with 22.2 percent (up by 0.7 percent). Apple remains out of the picture in India's price sensitive market.

Although the demand for personal computers in India has grown in the past few years, the country is increasingly seeing its people settle for a smartphone as their choice of computing platform. In many ways, the country never had its PC revolution moment and is already living in the post-PC era.