Wipro chugged on as usual. With a 36% growth rate Wipro managed to retain its fifth position. Wipro’s problems seem to be similar to IBM’s. While the company has two distinct brands—Voyager and Super Genius for the home and commercial segment, but lack of branding activity for both continues the confusion about the home and the commercial brands. The company has discontinued its third brand Mentor. With a coverage of over 67 cities, Wipro has a fair chance to move ahead on its desktops.

But so far, the results have been continuously disappointing. Wipro needs to retain its fifth position against the fast-rising Dell in the next two-three years.

The assemblers

A big market opportunity is there for the vendors to grab, if only they can wipe out the assemblers. If only… Unfortunately, it appears that this will remain a pipedream for a long time still. While multinationals and domestic players have been slogging and cannibalizing the market space, the assemblers have remained unscathed.

The year 2000-01 began badly for most of the players in this segment, as India faced a shortage of components, but once this crisis was resolved, they bounced back quickly. The assemblers have managed to retain their stranglehold, cornering over 50% of the overall market and over 75% of the home market segment. Short of a major push and price cutting by one of the larger players, there seems to be little that can upset their applecart.

Summing Up

It’s been an interesting year for the PC industry. The top five continued to retain their 30% share of the total industry. As compared to their commercial strategy, the top three players had a very clear and focussed home strategy in place and saw good results. The focus last year was clearly the home and the SOSB market with a majority of the players pitching to grab a piece of the pie.

Barring HCL, the other Indian vendors seem to be falling out of the race. The other major MNC left out but nevertheless growing rapidly is Dell, which tripled its numbers in the last fiscal. Given its traditional strength and aggression in the desktop space, one can bet Dell to be amongst the top 5 in the next year.

In terms of the smaller players, Mumbai-based PCS have done very well nearly doubling its numbers over last year. Zenith seems to be floundering with no clear strategy in place and could continue to see a flat or negative growth for the current year. However, given the current numbers, the battle for the top crown seems to be amongst the top two, Compaq and HCL. Can H-P or distant IBM make any impact? Wait and watch.