|
Pawan Joshi
Member,
SITA
How big is the Sambalpur IT market?
In total there are 15 active resellers in the market selling about 100 PCs on an average in a month. The market has been growing at 30 percent over the past two years.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
The primary reason for the IT market to thrive is a strong presence of education market. Schools and colleges are pushing IT as an important part of the curriculum. The home and the education segment together claim a big slice of the market pie. Besides, the presence of many steel and iron industries brings in more opportunities.
Overall, 50 percent of the total IT demand comes from the education market inclusive of the home segment, while the rest comes from industries and SMBs.
What are the buying trends?
Notebook demand has seen a considerable increase especially in the education and the home market. Of the overall PC sales, notebooks account for 60 percent while the desktops constitute the rest. The past two years have seen a considerable decline in the demand for assembled desktops. With the branded PCs being competitively priced, branded to assembled sales ratio is 60:40.
When it comes to software, people still prefer to buy pirated versions rather than paying huge sum for the original.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
Post-sales support issues are still a major concern. The vendors do not pay attention to small market like ours. The turnaround time is close to 15 to 20 days on average for any vendor.
Another problem is that, at times, vendor themselves are unclear about the warranty terms of a product. There have been cases where a product that comes with a lifetime warranty, was not provided service by the vendor after barely a year.
What activities are organized by the city’s IT association?
All the resellers in the market are members of Samaleswari IT Association (SITA) who are primarily into PC business. However, the association is not very active. |