At 4.5 mn, PC shipments in Q3 is biggest ever single qtr dispatch

It is bigger than the total annual consumer shipments in 2019, a year before the pandemic hit. As a result, many brands also reported their biggest quarter of PC shipments.

Indian PC shipments for the third quarter of CY21 touched a total of 4.5 million, making it India’s biggest-ever single quarter.

To put this in perspective, it is bigger than the total yearly consumer shipments in 2019, a year before the pandemic hit.

As a result, many brands also reported their biggest quarter of PC shipments.

The Indian PC market that has seen five straight quarters of annual growth may be heading for softer growth as the education sector moves offline as well as due to the supply chain issues.

For the third quarter of CY21 the traditional PC shipments witnessed a 30 per cent year-on-year growth), marking the fifth consecutive quarter of growth in India, according to new data from the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker.

On the outlook for upcoming quarters, Jaipal Singh, research manager, Client Devices, IDC India, said, “After five straight quarters of annual growth, the consumer market is hinting demand softening as schools and colleges resume their physical classes.

"Brands have prioritized margins in the last few quarters, however, to boost the penetration further, brands need to initiate new programs around affordability, awareness, and education to utilize the stimulus that pandemic has given to digital learning to plan their long-term growth.”

Singh further added, “Demand from enterprises and SMBs still look favorable to support the PC vendors in 2022 as key verticals continue to provide fresh orders.

"Additionally, vendors will target to materialize the long-pending education deals with improving the supply situation in the country.”

Notebook PCs continue to dominate the overall category with more than 80 per cent share.

Enterprise and consumer demand helped the Notebook category to reach over three million units for the first time, and the desktop category also continued its upward momentum as it grew by 30.5 per cent YoY in Q3CY21.

The demand for consumer notebooks continued to be robust while vendors struggled to get enough supplies to cater to the existing demand.

Despite these challenges, vendors were able to bill a total of 2.3 million consumer PCs, making it the biggest quarter for the consumer category in India.

Etailers also managed to procure stock for upcoming flagship sales, with over 771,000 shipments in Q3CY21, also reported the biggest quarter ever for online.

The commercial segment too, saw healthy shipments growth of  47.6 per cent YoY in Q3CY21.

Vendors had large backlog orders from enterprises and SMB clients from the last few quarters.

With better allocation in September, they were able to fulfill a significant portion of these pending orders.

Additionally, some of the long-due education projects started materializing, giving the education segment momentum.

Bharath Shenoy, Senior, Market Analyst, PC Devices, IDC India said, “Despite the better allocations to a few segments, the demand-supply gap continues to be a challenge as enterprises and SMBs continue to order in big volume.”

Shenoy  further added, “As the top three vendors are struggling to fulfill the entire requirement, some of the orders are moving to smaller vendors, thereby helping them to improve their presence in the commercial segment.”

Among the vendors, HP maintained its lead in the overall PC category as it reported the third consecutive quarter with over a million shipments in the country.

It led both commercial and consumer segments with a 28.5 per cent share in the overall PC category, while it maintained over 30 per cent share in the commercial segment for the third straight quarter, its share fell to 25.3 per cent in the consumer segment despite its consumer shipments growing 22.5 per cent YoY in Q3CY21.

Dell Technologies retained the second position with over 23.8 per cent share in the overall PC category.

It also overtook Lenovo in the consumer segment to take second place with a share of 19.2 per cent in Q3CY21.

Lenovo maintained the third position with an overall share of 18.6 per cent in Q3CY21.

Its shipments grew 19 per cent YoY in the commercial segment on account of a strong performance in the SMB and enterprise segments.

However, its consumer segment saw a marginal 3.4 per cent YoY growth during the quarter.

Acer Group retained the fourth position with an 8.6 per cent market share in Q3CY21.

ASUS retained the fifth position with a share of 8.5 per cent in Q3CY21.

Asus also shipped over 300 thousand PCs for the first time in the country, which helped the brand to get a six percentage points sequential jump in its share in the consumer segment as it finished fourth in the respective segment.

Photograph: Andrea Comas/Reuters