New Delhi: Driven by large commercial orders and higher laptop sales, the PC market in India grew about 8 percent in July-September quarter to 3.2 million units.

 However, on sequential basis, the market saw a fall.

 According to research firm Gartner, the Indian PC market grew 7.9 percent driven by large government orders and higher laptop sales in the third quarter of the calender year, while IDC pegged the growth at 8.3 percent in the same period on the back of higher commercial volumes from education projects.

 "July and August were noted to be upbeat as lower tier channels stocked up owing to exchange rate pressures. However, excess stock mixed with poor end user demand weakened channel buying in September," IDC Market Analyst Manish Yadav said.

 Despite constrained spending, back-to-school season and festive demand starting from Onam drove pockets of investment amongst consumers, particularly around portable PCs, he added.

 "Consumers accounted for 40 percent of total PC sales in the third quarter of 2013 compared to 47 percent in the third quarter of 2012," Gartner Principal Research Analyst Vishal Tripathi said.

 He added that despite the festive season and availability of various end-user schemes on PCs, the market was impacted by high inflation and global economic uncertainty.

 IDC said education projects in states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and a much-delayed spending in the year from the banking, financial services and insurance segment have largely skewed the overall growth in Q3 towards commercial segment.

 According to Gartner, white boxes (including parallel imports), which accounted for 40 percent of the overall desktop market, declined 26 percent in Q3 2013 compared to the same period last year.
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