Laptop Sales Soar, UPS Market Down

As summer has already entered the domain, and the sale of uninter­ruptible
power system (UPS) is expected to rise, but on the contrary because of the
laptops sales soaring, the market for UPS is bit down in the low-end segment for
home and small office. The growing market for laptops in the country has pulled
down the market for UPS in the low-end segment as laptops have an internal
battery and they do not require a UPS, which is affecting the sales of this
product.

What is bothering some vendors is that the desktop market has been sluggish
of late, which in turn has affected the market for UPS. The connectivity ratio
between UPS and desktops as per industry analysts is around 60 percent.

Pratik Chube, Country Manager-Channel Products, Emerson Network Power India
said, “We have seen a decline in the market for UPS in the entry-level segment.
But Emerson concentrates more on the enterprise segment, where we sell UPS and
complete solutions for data centers and UPS for mission critical applications.
So our overall balance sheet will not be affected by this trend.”

Agreeing with him, Subodh Tagare, MD, APC India said, “There is definitely a
decline in the market for UPS at the entry-level but in unit terms, the UPS
market in India has been growing at around seven percent and in value terms, the
market for UPS is growing at around 15 percent.” Tagare also claimed that the
ratio for connectivity between desktops and UPS is around 80 percent. He said,
“A-class cities contribute the most to the numbers of UPS sold but upcountry
regions like tier-2 cities have grown drastically in the last one year. With
people going for high-end PCs, they have now started opting for high-end UPS
also, which is good for vendors and partners.”

“The UPS market in India has grown at 37 percent in the last two years. UPS
today is not a seasonal product. People, who use mission critical applications,
will have their UPS in place, as they don't want their work to be affected by
any kind of power cuts and power fluctuations. I accept that the sales for UPS
have dropped recently since the market for desktops is also going down, but I
think there is still ample opportunity in the market as desktops are still in
demand in offices and home segment,” opined Ramdin Sanga, Marketing Manager, WEP
India.

“Laptops are just a fashion statement and the market for laptops and desktops
will co-exist,” said another vendor Ranjit Mohite, MD of Pune-based Champion
UPS. Raj Saraf, CMD, Zenith Computers said, “Laptops

and desktops will have 50 percent marketshare each in the PC indus­try.” Mohite
though accepted that market for UPS has gone down with laptop market increasing,
but he opined, “The growth has been coming from upcountry region now and we are
concentrating on B and C-class cities a lot.”

Ravindra N Hanchate, ASM-Mumbai, Tripp-lite UPS Systems said, “The drop in
the UPS market is not more than five percent as the desktop market is always
going to be there.”

The UPS market at lower end is mostly dominated by the unorganized sector.
Though companies like Champion and APC have their own share in it, Chinese and
Taiwanese products that are imported in the country, form a major part of the
sales at entry-level. The UPS market in the country as per IDC estimates is
around $400 million which is growing at 22 percent CAGR.

Vinay Dalvi

vinayd@cybermedia.co.in