BANGALORE: Some 2.7m PCs were shipped in India during the first quarter of 2013, representing year-on-year growth of 7.5%, according to latest data.

Figures from IDC, the research business, showed that the commercial sector was driving growth, as sales of branded desktops had increased thanks to several large deals, primarily in the banking, financial services and insurance sector as well as the IT and government verticals.

The consumer market remained largely flat with a marginal quarter-on-quarter growth of 1.5%.

"High inventory in the beginning of the quarter and weak sales towards the closing weeks largely pulled back the growth witnessed in Q1 2013," said Kiran Kumar, Research Manager, IDC India.

Hewlett-Packard was the leading vendor, with a 22.5% share of total shipments, followed by Acer and Dell, both on 13.8%, and Lenovo, on 11.7%.

"In addition to their success in the consumer business, HP picked up key wins and witnessed the execution of large deals in Government and BFSI verticals in Q1," said Manish Yadav, a market analyst at IDC India.

"Most importantly, the vendor picked up the special deal on laptops in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which cemented its position in the top spot," he added.

Referring to the performances of the second and third placed brands, Manish stated that they had both played to their strengths.

"Acer remains strong in the commercial business while Dell was seen riding high on its price cuts, specially on notebooks", he said.

IDC anticipated that stable prices and back-to-school campaigns would produce an uplift in the consumer PC market in the coming months.

While Kiran remained optimistic about commercial spending on PCs, he was cautious about the impact of new launches from Microsoft and Intel.

"We've seen in the recent past that some of the new launches like slim notebooks have struggled to make an impact because of the price premium," he observed.

"Hence, it'll be imperative for these new launches to remain affordable while highlighting the new/differentiating features."

Data sourced from Business Standard, IDC; additional content by Warc staff