The nationwide lockdown forced everyone to work from home, and this resulted in a strong demand for notebooks as enterprises ensured business continuity by providing its workforce with the required infrastructure to work at home, says IDC India in its latest report.
“Most IT services, global enterprises and consulting companies placed large orders for notebook PCs. This led to an all-time high of enterprise notebook purchases with shipments growing by 105.5% YoY in 2Q20. As a result, enterprises reduced desktop buying and even converted a few orders to notebooks. SMBs also increased their procurement of notebooks with relatively moderate growth of 12.1% YoY in 2Q20,” the report said.
Bharath Shenoy, Market Analyst PC Devices IDC India, revealed that the demand for notebooks exceeded expectations with most of the vendors exiting the quarter with minimum inventory. Despite the supply and logistics challenges in the first half of the quarter, Shenoy said companies executed most of the large orders in 2Q20. “Many companies shifted their employees to notebooks for the first time. This change is surely going to alter their procurement strategy in the long term with a mix of in-office and remote workforce becoming a reality for many organizations,” he explained.
The report pointed out that the consumer segment had a relatively small quarter since the market was operational for just 45 days due to the nationwide lockdown in the first half of the quarter. “Strong demand from eLearning was able to cover the gap to some extent,” it said. Moreover, online buying played an important role as vendors shipped almost one-third of their PCs to online channels.
Jaspal Singh, Associate Research Manager Client Devices IDC India said in the remaining quarters, the PC market is expected to face challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the looming economic situation. He said there would be a drop in enterprise buying and SMB demand is expected to remain muted for some quarters.
