However, the past few years have seen the major brands
slashing their prices in a big way to be able to compete in
an increasingly price sensitive market. The basic
technology used is not very different, since all these
players churn out similar configuration products.
Moreover manufacturing is being outsourced extensively
from third world countries and so are components. A
popular anecdote in the PC world goes thus: “PC
manufacturing units in China have one entry and many
different exits – Exit 1 for IBM, 2 for Compaq, 3 for Dell
and so on!
” Indeed in case of the basic PC, technology
ceases to be the differentiator today. But the service
back up provided is definitely a critical indicator of
competitiveness, or the lack of it. Here, branded PCs
score heavily over their unbranded counterparts.
The
market share of assembled PCs went down from 55 % in
the third quarter 2004 to 43% by the end of 2004,
primarily owing to major price drops by organised
players. Overall PC sales grew 29% by the end of March,
2005 touching 3.6 million.
