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Rajesh Gaur
CEO,
A Prompt Service, and Member,
KCDA
How big is the Korba IT market?
Being one of the smallest cities in the state of Chhattisgarh, Korba has only 10 active resellers who sell around 200 PCs in a month. The slowdown has impacted Korba, with the resellers witnessing a drop in the demand from customers.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
The home segment is the major IT driver in the city, contributing around 70 percent of the entire revenue. This is followed by the education segment which contributes the remaining 30 percent of the revenue. Although Korba is known as the power capital, and has plenty of industries, resellers do not see any demand from the corporate segment because most of the organizations here have their headquarters in a metro. As a result, their orders are fulfilled by the headquarters themselves.
What are the buying trends?
The resellers of Korba have seen a shift in the buying trends among consumers from the city. Consumers would earlier opt for assembled computers, but now they are gradually shifting toward branded PCs. Netbooks are also slowly catching up in the market, with the resellers selling three netbooks out of every five PCs. Lifestyle gadgets such as home theater systems, MP3 players and DVD players are also in demand from the consumer segment. The education segment usually demands desktops, printers and notebooks.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
Post-sales support is one of the major concerns. Only LG and Lenovo have their service centers in the city while the remaining are located in Raipur. This is quite inconvenient since it becomes an expensive and time-consuming process for the resellers. The turnaround time is fairly high, with the centers taking over a month to replace the products.
What are the activities organized by your association?
The city has a five-year-old association called the Korba Computer Dealers Association (KCDA). It has 13 members, and holds get-togethers, debates and seminars with vendors and partners in the city. The association also organizes an IT exhibition every year. |