Notebook demand, public-sector education buying and early inventory building drove India’s PC market to 4.4 million units in the first quarter, even as Omdia warned of a full-year decline amid rising component costs.
India’s personal computer market started 2026 on a strong note, with shipments in the January-to-March quarter rising 31.9% from a year earlier to 4.4 million units, according to Omdia. The consultancy said notebooks did most of the heavy lifting, reflecting a combination of consumer demand, government-led education buying and channel behaviour that pulled purchases forward before further price increases could take hold. IDC’s estimate for the same quarter was broadly similar, placing growth at 31.1% and also putting shipments at 4.4 million units.
Notebook shipments climbed 44.8% to 3.5 million units, while desktop volumes fell 2.7% to 882,000 units as higher component costs and a broader shift towards portable devices delayed orders. Omdia said brands and distributors had begun building stock early in the quarter in anticipation of rising input costs, a move that helped drive a 43% surge in the consumer segment as buyers opted for better-specced machines while prices were still comparatively favourable. Online promotions added further momentum.
Ashweej Aithal, senior analyst at Omdia, said the quarter showed how quickly the market reacts to price signals. He said consumers, businesses and channel partners accelerated buying and inventory build-up once higher component costs became visible, with the commercial PC segment particularly active. Omdia said commercial demand rose 25%, supported by large public-sector education programmes and planned refresh cycles across institutions.
The tablet market also improved, although the pattern was more uneven. Shipments rose 5.8% to 1.1 million units, helped by consumer demand and promotional activity, while weaker public-sector deployments held the market back. Omdia said education demand fell 35% in the quarter because government buyers paused new spending while they adjusted budgets and priorities. That weakness was partly offset by a 14% rise in consumer tablet sales and a 58% increase in non-education commercial demand, as smaller firms used tablets to digitise core processes and improve flexibility.
Omdia’s broader outlook remains cautious. It expects India’s PC market to fall 5.3% over the full year to 15 million units, citing tight supplies of memory and storage and a shift by vendors towards higher-margin systems. Entry-level products are becoming harder to source and harder to profit from, while AI-capable PCs are gaining traction as a possible demand support. The firm sees public education tenders remaining important but unpredictable, and says gaming systems and global capability centres are likely to prove more resilient because they are less exposed to price pressure.
For tablets, Omdia now forecasts 2026 shipments of 5.4 million units, up 9.8% year on year, with education demand expected to rebound by 36.5% even though it remains heavily dependent on government procurement schedules. The company also pointed to a wider manufacturing shift, with major smartphone vendors, especially Chinese brands, expanding local production in India to reduce supply-chain risk and soften the impact of component inflation. That localisation effort, Omdia said, should help support supply stability even as the market remains sensitive to cost swings.
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