The cost of the PC is one of the reasons for the low penetration of internet. Note, you don’t hear about the cost of software being a hurdle for obvious reasons.
The price of a PC has come down over the years. I came across these numbers in TOI (Oct 25, 2008),
The computer hardware industry has been growing 30% annually and is expected to do so till 2012.
SMBs are the largest consumers of PCs in India. For 2007-08 the total market size was $11.5 billion and SMB contributed about $4.3 billion.
Hardware industry has seen an investment of $18 billion
The tax on hardware is very high in India, approx 25%, which seems to be hurting its growth.
4.7 million PCs were sold in the first half of 2008
1.25 million notebooks were sold in the first half of 2008
Internet laptops are gaining popularity in India. HCL’s MiLeap costs about Rs 13,990. These laptops are rugged, eco-friendly and have an Intel chipset that reduces power usage.
The consumer PC segment is one-third of total PC market in India.
Some encouraging numbers of PC sales in India (ET) for Oct-Dec 2009 quarter, 25.7% yearly growth in PC sales (compared to Oct-Dec 2008) HP (16.2%) leads the race, followed by Dell (13.6%) and Acer (10.4%) Desktop market share: HP, HCL, Acer Notebook market share: Dell, HP Of the total 1.97m…
I had written a similar article earlier comparing the Oct-Dec 2009 quarter. The performance report for April 2009 - March 10, 8 million PCs (desktops, notebooks, netbooks) were sold during 2009-10, 18% higher than the previous year For April 2010-March 2011, this figure is expected to be 9.4 million (16%…
In "Broadband"
BG Mahesh
Internet application ideator and implementor. Been there and done that since early 1990s. I like to present data to the common man in the simplest manner on the internet.