NEW DELHI: Fuelled by a strong demand in telecom, banking and financial sectors and a drop in PC prices due to the onslaught of new technologies, India’s computer sales, desktops and notebooks combined, touched 2.96 million units in the first half of fiscal 2007, a growth of 19% over the same period the previous year.

The buoyant buying sentiment is likely to continue in the second half, pushing PC sales for the full year 2006-07 to 6.5 million units, about 30% jump over five million units sold in 2005-06. The forecast includes 5.6 million units of desktop sales, and 0.9 million units of notebook sales. This will take India’s total installed base for computers to 20 million.

According to industry performance review released by hardware association MAIT, of the overall sales during H1, the desktop sales stood at 2.53 million units, up 8% over 2.3 million units sold in the year-ago period, even as notebooks market sizzled with sales of 4.29 lakh units, growing at a scorching pace of 180% over the same period last year.

For the second quarter July-September, the overall PC sales stood at 1.75 million units, registering a growth rate of 19% year-on-year. Consumers in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, continued to show a healthy appetite for desktops computers, driving the desktop consumption in the top four metros by 25%, while consumption in the next four cities - IT hubs of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, as well as Ahmedabad - declined 48%. The rest of the country accounted for 58% share of the desktop sales, growing their market by 14%.

The share of households continued to be virtually stagnant in the desktop market, accounting for 23% of the sales, and ceding close to 77% of the market to the corporate and business sector. In absolute terms, the household accounted for sales of 5.72 lakh units, even as businesses lapped up 19.58 lakh units.

Amongst the microprocessors, Pentium IV was a clear favourite in desktops commanding a marketshare of 82%, even as others like AMD and Cyrix had to contend with a 13% marketshare. The period also saw the assembled PC brands making a comeback-of-sorts, at the cost of the Indian brands.

The assembled PC - the smaller and lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems witnessed a growth of over 27% in absolute unit sales and an increase in marketshare, accounting for 40% of the total PC sales against 34% earlier. At the receiving end were the Indian brands whose share dropped from 31% to 23%. However, MNC brands bucked this trend and expanded their marketshare in the sales basket to 37% against 35 % earlier.