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Home PCs

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PCQ Bureau
New Update
Year Winner
2000 Assembler
1999 Assembler
1998 Compaq
1997 Compaq
1996 Wipro
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Assembled PCs had dominated the market last year, and they

continue their reign this year too. Compaq was the brand that topped last year,

but this year it’s given way to Wipro, which was ranked fifth last year. Wipro

shot up from 26 UPI units last year to finish at 59 this year. Compaq fell from

65 to 49. The others who’d made it to the User’s Choice Club last year–IBM,

HCL, HP, Zenith–managed to remain listed, with slight changes in positions.

HCL fell from its third rank to end up seventh this year.

Home PCs

User's Choice Club  UPI
Assembled 100
Wipro 59
Compaq 48
IBM 28
HP 27
Zenith 21
HCL 20

The home PC market in India started with the impression that

a home buyer would want to make a purchase that would last a long time, and so

would be willing to pay a king’s ransom for it. However, the perception didn’t

translate too well into reality, and the local assembler took over.

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Among the currently-used brands, Compaq enjoyed the maximum

share, followed by Zenith and HP.

In region-wise awareness, Wipro tops in the South. Zenith’s

influence is mostly in the West.

The domestic PC market has been in high spirits, what with

sales touching the magic million mark. With the intense interest of people to

get on the Internet, this number is only going to shoot up sharply. And sure

enough, to match this interest, PC makers have also been making efforts to reach

as many buyers as possible. Prices have come down like never before–PCs are no

more for the affluent. This was apparent from our survey too, where the deciding

factor for buying a home PC wasn’t price, but quality. In fact, pricing has

been rated very low in going for a PC. The second important deciding factor for

home PCs isn’t the price, but reliability.

Most branded PCs have shown some significant changes in specs

as well as packaging. PIIIs and Celerons dominate, but AMD’s K6 and the Athlon

have had some presence too. High-end home PCs ship with huge hard disks–even

up to 20 GB. Bundled goodies are no more limited to printers–Web cams, TV

tuners, CD-RWs, DVD drives are now quite common. Internet accounts are almost a

de facto standard now. USB ports became common last year, while this year,

FireWire has made its appearance in two of the high-end home PCs that we’ve

reviewed in our Labs.

The Assembler seems to be well-entrenched in its position, making the

competition very tough for brands. Will the current strongly-growing brand–Wipro–be

able to surpass the assembler next year? Or will Compaq regain the lost crown

with its Presario range? Stay tuned as we home in on the winner next year.

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