|
How big is the Gangtok IT market?
Gangtok has one of the smallest IT markets. There are only 5 active resellers selling around 50 PCs per month. Over the last year, we have witnessed a growth of 20 percent. Being a small city with a small reseller community, we make just enough to cater to the demand for the city. Presently, the slowdown hasn’t affected us, but it might affect us soon as we have been witnessing a decrease in the demand for IT products since the last two months.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
In Gangtok, government segment is the main demand driver contributing around 70 percent of the revenues. This is followed by the home segment that contributes 20 percent and the hospitality and tourism segment contributes 10 percent to the revenues.
What are the buying trends?
Since Gangtok is the state capital and also the headquarters for East Sikkim district, it houses a number of government offices like the district collector’s office, the public welfare and engineering department and housing department. PCs and networking products are often demanded from these offices. We also see a demand for upgradation of PCs from the government segment. As Gangtok is a place of tourist interest, a lot of hotels and cyber cafes have been mushrooming. We see a huge demand for PCs and networking products from this segment. PCs and lifestyle products like mp3 players and speaker systems are some of the products that are mostly in demand from the home segment.
What are the biggest challenges facing resellers?
Gangtok’s mountainous terrain and climatic conditions are the major challenges that resellers face in the city. Since most of the partners get their products from Siliguri, land slides or heavy rainfall in the hills cause a massive delay in supplies. Other than this, we also face a number of service-related issues. Most of the vendors do not have their service centers here, we either have to go to Siliguri or Kolkata for warranty related issues and replacement of products. This proves to be time consuming and expensive for us.
What are the activities organized by your association?
Currently, the city does not have any association. However, a number of partners often attend the seminars and camps that are held in Siliguri. |