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Aman Gupta,
Member,
Pathankot Computers Dealers Association
How big is the Pathankot IT market?
The IT market in Pathankot is not a big market. There are only handful of players who dominate the IT business. There are about 12 active resellers in Pathankot selling on an average 1,600 PCs per month. The growth rate over the last couple of years has been only 10 percent.
What are the drivers for IT growth?
Since it is a small market, home is one of the major segments driving the market. The other demand growth driver is the defence segment. Both these segments contribute to the demand equally. With the emergence of several engineering colleges, the demand from the education segment is slowly catching up.
What are the buying trends?
The market is very price-sensitive and hence a number of smaller brands do well here. There is also a shift in the buying pattern with the preference tilting towards notebooks. The ratio of sales of desktops to notebooks is 3:1.
What are the key challenges faced by resellers?
The dominant issue in Pathankot is that of after-sales support. Except for LG and HP, none of the vendors have a local service centre. These vendors are able to resolve any service-related issue in three days while products of other vendors have to be sent to the company for repair ar any other issue. The turnaround time is about 20 days; this hampers our business considerably.
Vendors hardly take any intiatives to conduct training programs here. We would like vendors to come to smaller cities like ours and give us training as well as update us regularly on the latest products and technologies so that we do not lag behind the resellers in other markets. This will help us improve our business.
What are the activities organized by your association?
We have a local association called Pathankot Computers Dealers Association which was formed in 2003. There are currently 30 members in the association but only 12 of them are prominent participants. However, the association had become defunct and was revived again last year. It conducts meetings at least once in a month. |