There is no doubt that we are moving towards mobile computing. Infact, if you compare the scenario change over last 4-5 years, the change has been drastic to say the least. Consumers are doing away with there desktop computers and are increasingly moving towards Notebooks, netbooks & now tablet PCs.
Even Businesses and Offices now prefer getting notebooks for their employees, rather than being getting stuck to Desktops. There are 2 primary reasons for this change – First is the cost – Notebooks are now available cheap as compared to few years back. Infact, prices of some Netbooks available in the market are much lower than even Desktops computers. Secondly, the inherent advantage of mobility, which allows user to carry it around wherever required.
ITOPS, an IT Hardware study in India released by MAIT, the apex body representing India’s IT hardware has come out with Computer Hardware sales figures for 2009 – 2010. Let us look at the numbers, which clearly point to change in consumers preferences.
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Notebook (including net books) sales: 2004-2010
Last year (2008-09) has been generally down for all businesses, thanks to the global meltdown, so the fall in previous year can be attributed to that. However, if you look at the growth for past 4 years, you will notice that Notebook sales have grown at a very healthy pace. While 850k notebooks were sold in 06-07, the sales numbers tripled over last 4 years to 2.5 million units.
Desktop sales: 2004-2010
The growth of Notebooks has come at the expense of Desktop Sales, which has seen flat growth. Barring the small fall last year, Desktop sales have been pretty much in the region of 5.5 million units. However, purely in terms of number of units sold, Desktop computers still leads by a huge margin (5.5 Million units against 2.5 million Notebooks.)
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Notebook (Netbook & tablet sales included) sales beat Desktop in numbers over next 3-4 years.
Server Sales: 2004-2010
If you look at Server sales numbers, it is quite interesting – the numbers have been falling for past 3 years and CAGR since 2004 is only 3%. Here is my take – Lot of consumers are now moving towards web based solutions rather than client–server based models. I am not sure how much cloud computing is playing a part, but most Businesses now a days prefer having Internet based applications catering to their needs.
Another trend that most of you may have seen over past few years is – gradual decrease in Assembled PC market. Again, pricing is playing a key role here. Today’s Desktop computer costs are at par with assembled machines and hence consumers prefer going with MNC branded machines rather than locally made or assembled PC.
While MNC branded computers held a market share of about 35% in 2005-06, today their market share has increased to 52%.
Active Internet entities (Individuals/Establishments): March’10
While actual numbers are nothing to write about – the number of entities using Internet have seen a steady growth year on year.
Download the full ITOPs report here
excatly what i was looking for
Nice! always wondered by about these numbers.
I am sure the decreasing price of laptops(which includes netbooks i suppose?) is a big factor. Laptops obviously provides mobility and nowadays costs almost same as desktop(in many cases cheaper).
Like Steve Jobs said ” “PCs are going to be like trucks,” … “They are still going to be around.” However, he said, only “one out of x people will need them.”