India PC sales grew 44.5% in 2021 led by demand for notebooks – IDC

The Indian PC market shipped a total of 14.8 million units in 2021.

The research firm, however, said demand may soften in 2022 due to persisting supply chain issues and higher pricing.

The notebook category was the volume driver, with shipments reaching 11.6 million units due to remote work requirements, its Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker showed.

The desktop category, which saw a steep decline in 2020, managed a recovery with 30% YoY growth, mainly attributed to strong demand from enterprises, small and medium businesses, and the consumer segment.

“As schools and colleges continued to function remotely for a second consecutive year, the demand for a computing device became extremely important for students. Some of the students who were earlier using smartphones/tablets for their virtual classes opted for a PC for obvious benefits such as bigger screen and ease of usage,” said Bharath Shenoy, senior market analyst, PC devices, IDC India.

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HP Inc continued to lead the overall PC market with a share of 31.5%, while Dell Technologies followed with a 23.6% share, driven by increased demand from Indian IT/ITES customers and its global accounts. Lenovo held on to its third position with a share of 17.4%.

Though there was unprecedented demand for PCs over the last two years, in both the commercial as well as consumer segments, demand is expected to soften in 2022, said Navkendar Singh, research director, client devices, IDC India.

“While digitalization and remote working are expected to be primary drivers for the SME and enterprise segments, component shortages, supply challenges, and increased prices might continue to impact the government and education segments negatively, leading to further delays in projects. We may also witness some traction for the newer vendors in the consumer segment as supplies start improving in the second half of the year,” Singh said.

In the fourth quarter, the commercial segment posted a YoY growth of 81.4%, while the consumer segment witnessed a more subdued YoY growth as vendors focused on inventory correction following a very strong third quarter, IDC said.

Vendors collectively shipped more than 4 million PCs in the October-December quarter, it said.

The desktop category was driven by demand in the education and virtual learning environment segments, shipping more than 800,000 units for the first time in eight quarters. Notebooks clocked over 3 million units for a second quarter in succession.

“The consumer segment witnessed strong growth despite facing supply disruptions across the year. While the incumbent brands managed to get better allocations and ship bigger volumes of PCs, new brands that entered the Indian market in the past few years struggled to get timely supplies thereby straining to fully capitalize on the market opportunity,”
Shenoy said.