High notebook sales to trigger surge in PC market

New Delhi: Augmenting sales of notebooks will trigger a surge in the personal computer market in the country, which is expected to grow by 13.7 percent to 11.1 million units in 2009. The PC market grew by more than 17 percent to 9.76 million units in 2008.

The research firm Gartner also anticipates the laptop market to cover one third of total PC market in 2009, which is projected to grow by 37 percent in 2009 to 3.69 million units. Amidst recession, the firm had lowered the forecasts for the current year from their earlier expectations of 51 percent increase in the sales of laptops. "We expect the first two quarters to see sluggish sales but pick up in the last two," Diptarup Chakraborti, Gartner's principal research analyst told Economic Times. The firm has made its forecast based on the expectations of a revival in the global economy by mid-2009 and a surge in consumer spending during the festive season towards the year end. While government spending is likely to support computer sales during the January-March quarter, consumer spending is expected to lead the growth.

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Apart from the lowered forecast for laptop sales, a renewed interest in the desktops is witnessed to increase. "The larger price differential between desktops and laptops after the price hikes in 2008 has made a set of users veer towards desktops," said George Paul, Executive Vice President of HCL Infosystems. Yet, companies, such as Samsung has re-entered the laptop market as they believe that it continues to witness exponential growth.