Laptop sales surge 50 per cent in Bangladesh
April 2nd, 2007
Sales of portable personal computer saw about 50 per cent growth last year in Bangladesh, though political turmoil throughout the later half of 2006 affected other businesses, finds an international market research firm.
‘Aggressive pricing strategies of multinational corporations are credited to the tremendous growth in the portable sector,’ Singapore-based Springboard Research said in its quarterly market survey report, titled Asia Emerging Countries Tracker.
Bangladesh’s PC and server market generated growth of 19.2 per cent in 2006 with 193,600 units shipped compared to 162,400 units in 2005, while laptop sales surged by 49.6 per cent, followed by desktop and X86 server segments.
‘Continued healthy economic performance, increased investments from large corporations, especially from the telecom and financial industries, helped drive the upswing in the PC and server market,’ said the report released Thursday.
Among MNCs, Springboard found, HP led the market with a 10.5 per cent share of personal computer shipments in 2006, followed by Dell and Lenovo. Leading local vendors, Daffodil and Flora, contributed a combined 5.8 per cent share to total PC shipments in the same period.
Despite the strong performance of the portable segment in 2006, Springboard Research forecast that political tension would affect future PC and server market growth. ‘With the transfer of political power to a caretaker government in October 2006, a substantial decrease was seen in the government’s IT spending during the fourth quarter. Government spending is expected to further slow in the first half of 2007.’
Springboard predicted the market would grow just at a rate of 16.6 per cent in 2007.
Springboard observed that in the last one year the multinational IT vendors in the country aggressively expanded their operations and launched new products.
Through the Asia Emerging Countries Tracker, Springboard Research tracks computer market developments in Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Pakistan every three months.