Indian PC shipments fall 20 percent, Dell sees strong gains: Gartner

Declining government spending on hardware hit Indian PC shipments during the October-December quarter, as sales fell by 20 percent to 1.96 million units, research firm Gartner said on Tuesday.

"Consumers accounted for 49 percent of total PC sales in the fourth quarter of 2013," said Vishal Tripathi, principal research analyst at Gartner. "In the absence of any government orders this quarter, the Indian PC market performed dismally, re-emphasising the fact that with current economic sentiments and the current political scenario, enterprises are deferring their purchases."

White boxes (including parallel imports), which accounted for 44 percent of the overall desktop market, declined 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 compared to the same period last year. In the fourth quarter, mobile PCs registered a 27 percent year on year increase.

Dell increased its market share in 4Q13 due to strong growth in notebooks which increased 49 percent year over year. This growth primarily came from the consumer segment where Dell grew by 70 percent. HP's market share in the consumer segment grew by 3 percent compared to the last quarter.

HP had 21.3 percent market share, followed by Dell at 18.6 percent and Lenovo at 15.9 percent. Acer and HCL had market share of 9.2 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively. That's a huge drop for HCL, which had 11.6 percent marketshare in Q4 2012. Acer also recorded a slight dip, as the big three of HP, Dell and Lenovo increased their grip on the market.

The combined marketshare of other vendors also recorded a dip from 34.4 percent to 32.5 percent.