Indian PC market rated fifth largest in AP

A report by the leading infotech market research and consulting company, International Data Corporation, reveals that the Indian PC market is among the top five in the Asia Pacific region. The report is based on shipment figures for the first quarter of 1999.

The report considers all Asia Pacific countries except Japan. Shipments of PCs for the region aggregated 2.95 million units. This figure was 25 per cent higher than the figure for the first quarter of 1998, and over 2 per cent higher than that for the last quarter of 1998.

The year-on-year growth rate in 1999 Q1 was the highest since the second quarter of 1996, which had registered 30 per cent growth. Against this background, IDC has revised its estimates for 1999 to 12.9 million units, representing a growth rate of more than 23 per cent over 1998.

The growth rate in the first quarter in different countries ranged from 4 per cent in Malaysia to about 66 percent in Indonesia. Growth prospects look very good in spite of regional disturbances like political uncertainty in India and strained US-China relationship and economic instability in many countries of the region.

In the Asia Pacific market, China ranked highest with a 35 per cent growth rate, while Australia, South Korea, India and Taiwan are the other major markets. Among companies, IBM led with 49 per cent growth in YoY terms. Compaq followed with 7.5 per cent, and Legend, Samsung and Hewlett Packard came in next.