The Indian PC market grew by an impressive 32 per cent in the first half of fiscal 2004-05 as compared to 18 per cent during the corresponding period last year with HP topping the list with 15 per cent market share, according to IT research firm IDC
From market leader HP and premium player Apple to China's Lenovo and Asus, all major brands in the market are witnessing rapid surge in the demand for notebooks.
India's personal computer market, in the second quarter (April-June, 2003), grew by 11.8 per cent on a year-on-year basis with HCL regaining the top spot in the commercial desktop space with 36,075 units and a marketshare of 9.6 per cent.
After six weeks into the second half, the faltering offline channel, which traditionally rakes in 60 per cent of sales for the market, has become the biggest hurdle towards the path of revival.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
Network security has emerged as a major technology concern amongst corporates in India besides other factors like costs, network management and lack of technical knowledge.\n\n
In the quarter ending June 2022, the growth of Internet subscribers was less than one per cent of all of 2021.
According to analysts, most of the growth in the smartphone space will come from existing users, who will be lured to upgrade their handsets as new features and technologies turn existing features redundant, says Arnab Dutta.
Google's premium smartphone series Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will be around 15-21 per cent costlier in India compared to other countries, according to the prices revealed by the company. The company has started pre-booking the Pixel 7 at Rs 59,999 ($729.36) and Pixel 7 Pro at Rs 84,999 ($1033.27) on the e-commerce portal Flipkart. The devices would be available from October 13.
Apple was a fringe player in all key categories like smartphones, notebooks, and tablets till recently. But with the last quarter's record-breaking performance, the brand has established itself in the country's price-sensitive consumer electronics market.
Rising prevalence of work-from-home and e-learning is driving sales of notebooks and tablets for most brands, but Apple's superior performance has more to do with its product quality.
To beat its rivals, Nokia has done what most Chinese brands did soon after they entered the Indian market. Tied up with a well-known Bollywood actor as endorser, associated with cricket and established fan engagement initiatives, reports T E Narasimhan.
Apart from bringing new suppliers on board, Xiaomi is also hoping to take advantage of the newly launched PLI scheme that offers incentives on incremental production of smartphones with 2020 as the base year.
Xiaomi is the third largest smartphone brand in the top 30 cities in India.
In spite of being attacked from all corners, a faltering supply chain and negative sentiments soaring high among the local consumers, top Chinese smartphone brands gained market share during the most critical phase - the April-June quarter of this year.
After the successful debut of its affordable Android One devices, tech giant Google is all set to launch its premium Nexus 6 smartphone and Nexus 9 tablet in India in next few weeks.
In a first, the India's smartphone market fell by 4%.
Tech major Lenovo on Thursday said it is significantly ramping up its local manufacturing capabilities in India across product categories like PCs, notebooks and smartphones to meet the increasing customer demand. While the company did not disclose the investment being made, Lenovo said it is expanding in India across all business lines, including PC and smart devices, smart phones, infrastructure solutions, and especially in the newly established services and solutions group. Lenovo has expanded its in-house PC manufacturing plant in Puducherry to include a third manufacturing line, while it has started local manufacturing of its tablet computers in partnership with Wingtech Technology in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.
Ola Electric on Thursday teased five new electric motorcycles that the SoftBank-backed company is working on, announcing the range after selling electric scooters. The products are labelled cafe racer, an adventure tourer, a scrambler and a naked motorcycle. The motorcycles are expected to be launched next year and would include premium and mass-market versions, said sources.
'As long as ASUS continues to introduce new products into the market, we still have a chance to grow our business in India.'
The smartphones are priced Rs 6,399 onwards.
Once the darling of consumers, the April-June sales figure for Apple is a historic low. This has coincided with Chinese player OnePlus taking top spot in premium smartphones with a share of 40 per cent and Samsung slipping to second position at 34 per cent in April-June.
Whoever can make acquiring smartphones more affordable will win the sales game.
HCL Infosystems has emerged as the best employer in the information technology industry in India, according to a survey conducted by Dataquest-IDC (International Data Corporation).
In terms of vendor share, Chinese PC maker Lenovo sustained its lead with a 16.9 per cent while HP recorded a 15.6 per cent and Acer 15.5 per cent share during the quarter.
Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday said there is a tremendous momentum in cloud adoption, as he termed cloud a "big game changer". Nadella, who is currently in India, addressed Microsoft Future Ready Leadership Summit in Mumbai on Tuesday. He is also scheduled to visit Delhi and Bengaluru this week, and will be meeting key customers, startups, developers, educators and students during his India visit.
Tech giant Microsoft will set up its largest and fourth data centre in India at Hyderabad with an investment outlay of over Rs 15,000 crore over a period of 15 years. "I am very happy to say today that Hyderabad will be the destination for Microsoft's largest Data Centre investment in India with an investment of over Rs 15,000 crore over a period of 15 years. "This will be one of the largest FDIs that Telangana has attracted," Telangana Minister for IT and Industries KT Rama Rao on Monday said at an event marking the announcement of Microsoft's latest data centre region in Hyderabad.
The company claims it is selling as many tablets internationally as it is retailing in India.
Apple's online launch is a symbol of success for FDI in single-brand retail, though there's no indication of how much the Silicon Valley major would invest in the country.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday conducted searches at 44 places across the country in a money laundering investigation against Chinese smartphone manufacturing company Vivo and related firms, officials said. The searches are being carried out under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) at locations in several states including in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Maharashtra and others. The agency is conducting searches at 44 places related to Vivo and associated companies, they said.
Mobile handset shipments to India declined by 3 per cent in the April-June period compared to the previous quarter due to inventory build-up and reworking on product line-up by vendors, says research firm IDC.
Chinese handset maker Xiaomi has begun covering its retail store branding with white 'Made in India' logo amid fears of vandalism at outlets against the backdrop of Sino-India border tension, the All India Mobile Retailers Association said. The association had written to Chinese mobile brands to highlight the threat of vandalism at offline stores by people amid calls for boycotting Chinese products in certain sections.
E-learning and work from home have forced a section of feature phones users to shift to smartphones.
The PC maker will increasingly focus on its business solutions services, and not just personal computing.
Smartphone shipments stood at 16.2 million in 2012.
It has 18.9 per cent share of the market, down from 22.6 per cent for the third quarter of 2018 while Xiaomi has 27.1 per cent share.
Lenovo Group Ltd said on Tuesday it was establishing a smartphone assembly unit in India.
The Chinese smartphone maker's focus on offline retail has helped it overtake Samsung in top 50 cities in India.
