New Delhi, Feb 17 (IANS) The rise in the commercial demand of desktops and notebooks has led to the personal computers (PC) market in India registering a 26 percent rise in sales during the quarter ended Dec 31. The sales went up to 24.9 lakh units from 19.7 lakh units during the same period of the corresponding year.

While desktop PCs reported 14 percent increase year-on-year at 14.5 lakh units, the sales of notebook computers grew at 49 percent to reach 10.4 lakh units for the quarter, said market research firm IDC in a study released here.

‘High inflation and low industrial growth rates failed to dampen the PC market in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2010. As the market came off the traditional peak, it was still able to return an impressive year-on-year growth, indicating the inherent strength of consumer and commercial demand,’ said Anirban Banerjee, associate vice president, research, IDC India.

In the overall PC market, HP (Hewlett-Packard) regained market leadership after two quarters with an increased market share of 17.3 percent in terms of sales while Dell and Acer stood at 14.2 percent and 11.5 percent, respectively.

However, in terms of desktop PC sales, HP and HCL were statistically tied for the first position with 10.86 percent and 10.78 percent shares, respectively.

HP reclaimed its top slot in notebook sales with 26.2 percent market share while Dell and Acer followed.

‘The year 2010 has been an impressive year of recovery for the India PC market after a dismal 2009,’ said Sumanta Mukherjee, lead PC analyst, IDC India.

‘While consumers have been the main architects of this recovery, it has been ably supported by renewed buying sentiment displayed by the small and medium business and government segment,’ he added.