India PC market grew 13 percent in Q3

India's combined desktop and mobile PC market totaled nearly 2.5 million units in the third quarter of 2011, expanding by 13 percent over the same quarter last year, according to new figures from Gartner.

The research firm said in a report Thursday that all the major multinational PC vendors experienced double-digit growth in PC shipments in third-quarter 2011, with Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo contributing more than half of total PC shipments.

These top four vendors represented 51.1 percent of India's PC market where Dell gained 15 percent in market share, while HP held at 13.3 percent, Lenovo at 12.1 percent and Acer at 10.8 percent.

Local vendor HCL accounted for 5.6 percent of overall shipments and was the only vendor in the top five to register an annual decline in shipments in the third quarter.

"The [market] growth was primarily driven by the mobile PC segment which grew 29 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2011," VIshal Tripathi, principal research analyst of Gartner, said in the report. "A number of festivals helped drive demand in the consumer market in India. The third quarter was the best quarter in the history of the Indian PC industry, as overall PC shipments crossed 3 million units for the first time."

He added that the consumer segment accounted for 55 percent of PC shipments.

However, Tripathi cautioned that the same success should not be expected in the fourth quarter where, after the post-festive season, there would be "sluggishness" in the market.