The personal computer sales crossed 800,000 units during the October-December quarter, an impressive 87 per cent growth over the same period a year ago, which take the projected sales for 2003-04 beyond 30 lakh (3 million) units, hardware industry association MAIT said on Thursday.

"The desktop PC market grossed over 800,000 units in the third quarter, an 87 per cent growth over the same quarter in the last fiscal. This is a sequential growth of 31 per cent over the previous quarter," MAIT said in its industry performance review for the third quarter.

With increased sales throughout the year and the last quarter traditionally accounting for maximum sales, the industry is expected to comfortably cross the 3 million mark in PC sales, it said.

According to MAIT projections, Q4 is likely to see PC sales to the tune of 930,000 units.

"We are confident that in the fiscal 2003-04 we will cross 3 million units, a growth of 30 per cent over 2002-03," Vinnie Mehta, executive director, MAIT said.

"The growth projection for 2004-05 is healthy and this may still better by another 5 to 10 per cent should the government reduce excise duty to 8 per cent and increase depreciation to 100 per cent on all IT products."

The assembled PC market accounted for 55 per cent of the PC sales in Q3; Indian brands cornered 15 per cent while MNC brands accounted for the rest 30 per cent.

Notebook PC market during the quarter recorded 105 per cent growth over the previous quarter of July-September with sales of 29,000 units.

MAIT said corporates had hitherto been the main targeted buyers of Notebook PCs. But lately household buyers of Notebook PCs were also growing, due to declining prices that now match those of desktop PCs, it added.

The server market also showed buoyancy, crossing 16,600 units and registering a growth of 85 per cent over the previous quarter.

The third quarter saw significant growth in sales of most peripherals. Laser printers grew 83 per cent, followed by Inkjet printer 57 per cent, and UPS 56 per cent, on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

The sales of dot-matrix printer registered a quarter-on-quarter growth of 7 per cent.

"The buoyancy in PC sales can be attributed to increased consumption by telecom, banking, financial services, insurance and ITeS companies as well as manufacturing sector along with education, retail and self-employed professionals," MAIT said.

It said government buying was subdued during the quarter and is expected to pick up in Q4.

The significant consumption by the price-sensitive SMEs and home segment is due to the drop in prices especially at the entry level.

The government had announced an 8 per cent reduction in excise duty on PCs and elimination of excise duty on micro-processors, hard-disk drives, floppy disk drives and CD-ROM drives in January.