While the PC industry in the rest of the world is taking a hammering, the market in India is growing.
Number crunchers at Omdia claim India’s PC market, excluding tablets, grew 31.9 per cent year on year in the first quarter of 2026, reaching 4.4 million units.
Notebook shipments hit 3.5 million units after rising 44.8 per cent. Demand came from consumers and big government education tenders, including the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu project.
Desktops had a rougher time, falling 2.7 per cent to 882,000 units. Higher component prices and the shift to mobile kit meant buyers put orders on ice. The tablet market managed a 5.8 per cent rise to 1.1 million units, helped by consumer demand and promotions offsetting weaker deployments.
The first-quarter surge was not some miracle of corporate genius. Brands and channels stuffed the pipeline early to lock in pricing before component costs went up again.That helped trigger a 43 per cent jump in the consumer market, as buyers grabbed higher-performance PCs at old prices. Online retail promotions poured more petrol on the bonfire.
Omdia senior analyst Ashweej Aithal said: “Q1 2026 demonstrated how quickly the market can respond to pricing signals. Faced with the prospect of higher component costs, consumers, businesses and channel partners accelerated purchases and inventory builds to secure existing pricing. This was particularly evident in the commercial PC market, which grew 25 per cent, supported by large government-led education projects and organisations bringing forward planned device refreshes.”
Tablets were a bit more split. Education demand fell 35 per cent as the public sector delayed new spending while it fiddled with funding plans. Consumer tablet demand rose 14 per cent, pushed by premium models with better displays and stronger entries from Chinese vendors. The commercial segment, excluding education, jumped 58 per cent as small and medium-sized businesses used tablets to digitise workflows.
“Throughout this period, local production has played a pivotal role in maintaining consistent shipments, allowing vendors to keep inevitable price increases more manageable,” Aithal said.
For the full year, Omdia expects India’s PC market to hit 15 million units, down 5.3 per cent year on year. So the party has a bar tab attached.
Aithal said: “The near-term outlook is cautious as the continues to face memory and storage supply constraints.Looking ahead, component-driven cost pressures are leading vendors to prioritise higher-value models, making entry-level devices less readily available and more challenging to produce profitably. At the same time, AI-capable PCs are becoming increasingly mainstream, and are expected to support demand even as consumer and business spending remains under pressure.”
Large public-sector education tenders should keep shipping volumes alive, although demand may wobble with procurement delays. Gaming is proving tougher than expected because buyers still want fast hardware even when prices misbehave.
Global capability centres are becoming another useful source of enterprise buying. These outfits are spending on specialised, high-performance systems for their work as innovation hubs, or at least that is the posh version.
Aithal said, “Enterprise technology spending is becoming more selective. While some public-sector projects are being delayed as organisations adjust budget and priorities, segments such as gaming and expanding GCCs have remained more resilient to cost pressures, contributing to a more segmented market.”
Omdia expects tablet shipments in India to reach 5.4 million units in 2026, up 9.8 per cent. Education shipments are forecast to rise 36.5 per cent, although that depends on government-led projects and their thrilling procurement calendars.
Vendors are pushing larger, higher-performance displays at consumers who want tablets for productivity rather than sofa scrolling. Major smartphone vendors are leaning more heavily on local manufacturing to soften component-driven price increases.
Chinese brands are expanding local operations to strengthen supply chains and keep prices competitive, a rather old-fashioned idea called making things near the people who buy them.
