Dell no. 1 again in India with a decisive edge over HP, foreign brands cross 50% mark

After the see-saw of the Indian PC crown between the World number 1 HP and its bette noire Dell, the latter seems to have given a decisive trouncing to its bigger rival in India.

With consumers shifting more and more to the notebook segment, away from the boxy desktops, Dell took the top spot with 16.7% of the Indian PC market during the quarter ended March, up from 15% in the December quarter.

In comparison, HP’s market share fell from 15.8% in December quarter to just 12.1% in the latest quarter.

Dell’s marketshare is one of the highest posted by any brand in the Indian market in several quarters and shows considerable momentum behind the ‘challenger brand.’ HP had been the undisputed number one in India for many years till about a year ago, when Dell burst onto the scene with cheaper, more visible products.

The numbers also revealed that the same desktop-to-laptop migration that is helping Dell has also helped foreign brands to cross the halfway mark in Indian PC market for the first time.

Acer, Dell, HP and Lenovo, the top 4 India vendors, captured a total of 50.4% of the Indian PC market. They had a combined market share of just 48.3% during the December quarter.

“All the major multinational PC vendors experienced double-digit growth in mobile PC (laptop) shipments in the first quarter of 2011. Multinational brands contributed more than half of the total PC shipments in the first quarter of 2011,” Gartner said.

In comparison, India’s biggest brand, HCL accounted for just 7.1%.