iPad is a beacon of light in India's contracting PC market

Rapidly declining laptop sales are a grave portent for India's overall PC market, but Apple's dominance of the tablet portion of that market with the iPad remains a bright spot.

The PC market in India, which comprises desktops, notebooks, and tablets, fell 4% year-over-year to 5.1 million units in quarter three of 2022. Notebook shipments drove the overall decline, decreasing by 21%.

Quarter four was also a rough spot for the industry as the PC market significantly declined by 22% year-over-year with 4.1 million units shipped, according to new Canalys estimates. Again, notebooks were the primary factor, down 31% to 2.3 million shipped units.

Desktop shipments fell by 5% to 695,000 units, while tablet shipments decreased by 7% to 1.2 million units.

Desktop shipments fell by 5% to 695,000 units

The decline depends on how you look at the data. The first half of 2022 was solid, with a miserable second half.

For the year overall, shipments were up 5% compared to 2021. While notebook shipments fell 7% to 11 million units, desktop and tablet shipments increased significantly by 37% and 21% to 3.2 million and 5.4 million units in 2022, respectively.

Including tablets, Apple in the second place shipped 575,000 PCs in quarter four of 2022, behind HP in the first place, which shipped 957,000 units. Lenovo, Dell, and Acer trailed behind Apple at 563,000, 474,000, and 364,000 units, respectively.

However, Apple dropped to last place in PC shipments for 2022, at 1.6 million units. In particular, though, the company surged to first place in the segment with iPad shipments in quarter four hitting 404,000, with 976,000 iPads shipped across the entire year.

Apple didn't appear in the list for overall desktop and notebook shipments for the top five companies but was able to ship 171,000 Mac models in quarter four.

Compared to other major economies, GDP growth projections for the nation are still somewhat optimistic

Looking ahead, Canalys expects PC and tablet shipments in India will fall by 6% in 2023 to 18 million units. However, it's a smaller decline than the worldwide market, which analysts anticipate to drop by 9% in 2023.

India will be impacted by the global economic slowdown this year, but compared to other major economies, GDP growth projections for the nation are still somewhat optimistic.