India's PC market may have reached trough as shipment fell by 35% in 1Q23

India's PC market saw a sharp drop in shipments as vendors still struggled with weak demand and high inventories. At the same time, demand is recovering, and the market may have reached its trough.

Canalys released the market tracker for India's first-quarter PC shipment, which includes desktops, notebooks, and tablets. Overall, India's PC shipment fell by 35% to 3.9 million units. Shipments of desktops and notebooks declined by 41% and 7%, respectively, with tablet shipment dropping below the million-unit market to 987,000 units.

All major vendors saw their shipments fall year-on-year. HP kept first place in India's overall PC market for the first quarter of 2023. Samsung regained the lead position it lost to Apple with a 32% market share in the tablet market as iPad's shipment dropped by 16%.

Despite the lackluster performance of major PC vendors in India, Canalys analyst Ashweej Aitnal, citing the Reserve Bank of India, said that consumer sentiment is on an upward trend, and business confidence remains above the historical average. Canalys expects India's PC shipment to grow by 11% in 2024 and 13% in 2025.

Meanwhile, Apple just opened its first two retail stores in India. The Economic Times quoted sources saying that these stores had each grossed monthly sales of over INR220-250 million, which could be the highest revenue for an electronics store in India during non-Diwali period. Bloomberg in early June reported that Apple is looking to open its third store in India in Mumbai amid the Asian retail expansion plan.

Meanwhile, according to IDC's forecast, India is expected to witness another annual shipment drop in the second quarter of 2023 before starting to experience growth in the second half of the year.

Major PC vendors, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, reported annual falls in sales, operating income, and net income for the first quarter of the year.

Source: Canalys, June 2023