Domestic laptop, tablet shipments decline in year of weak enterprise demand

Shipments of laptops, desktops and tablets declined in India in 2023, hurt mainly by slow commercial deals from companies and lack of government contracts.

Data from market researcher International Data Corporation (IDC) India published Tuesday showed a 9.7% drop in commercial PC shipments, while commercial tablet shipments dropped 42.3%, leading to an overall drop in laptop and tablet shipments in India.

Overall PC shipments, which include desktops, laptops and workstations, dropped 6.6% year-on-year (y-o-y) to 13.9 million units in 2023. Overall tablet shipments fell 24.9% y-o-y to 4.01 million units. Laptops account for roughly 65% of all PC shipments in the country, making it the biggest driver of all PC sales.

On 6 February, Mint had reported that laptop shipments were set to decline in 2023, driven by fewer government contracts, slow tech spending among enterprises, as well as weak consumer demand for new PCs.

“Big enterprises are not buying much, because of which the commercial demand for laptops has fallen. This is because companies are reducing IT spending to cut costs due to macroeconomic concerns. Combined with this, the first half of the year saw low shipments since brands were consolidating leftover inventory of products. This led to a shipment decline in the first half of the year, which revived in the second half due to the festive period,” Bharath Shenoy, senior research analyst at IDC India, had told Mint at the time.

On Tuesday, Shenoy said that market sentiments improved in the latter half of the year. “The decision on import regulations, improving market sentiment, and an aggressive push from vendors ensured a market recovery in the second half of 2023. Despite a minor decline last year, the market was way ahead of pre-covid-19 pandemic shipments, which underscores the stability in the consumer segment,” he said.

Weakness in enterprise tech spending will likely persist for as long as the West-driven macroeconomic headwinds affect companies across India, which is likely to keep demand for PCs muted. Demand for tablets saw a marginal 1.9% y-o-y increase in the consumer segment. However, a steep fall in educational tablets (down 53.7%) and small-medium business (SMB) tablets (down 25.9%) led to the overall shipment decline for tablets.

Going forward, the market demand, especially among enterprises, is expected to remain tepid at best. Navkendar Singh, associate vice-president of devices research at IDC India, said, “With elections coming up in 2Q24, the commercial segment will be slow as deals/projects, especially in the public sector, will be delayed. However, an increased focus on local assembly and the launch of AI-powered devices in the second half of the year can provide a boost going into 2025."