The presence of universities and Vidyapeth has brought about a boom in the IT industry in Varanasi, according to the 33 channel partners who attended the DIY meet in the city where presentations were made by HP and Logitech.
Though a small town, Varanasi generates a monthly demand of 300 PCs. Altogether there are 80-85 authorised dealers and around 70 unauthorised dealers playing in the market.
Although HP, Samsung, LG have their service centres in the city, it generally takes over a month to get the defective item repaired. "Depending upon the intensity of the problem the number of days taken to replace the machinery changes," added Singh.
"The major problem faced by the partners is support from the vendors. The maintenance and services provided by these vendors are not adequate," said Prakash Dutta of Premier Marketing.
The demand for branded PCs is more than the assembled ones and accounts for 60% of sales while only 30% of sales are in the assembled segment. The brands in demand are HCL, Compaq, HP and Tosiba.
According to Alok Raghuvanshi of Raghuvanshi Computers, "The trends change every quarter in the market. In the last quarter the demand for assembled was more and in this quarter the demand for branded is more. The price factor plays an important role in the shift in demand."
The demand for laptops is dominating the Varanasi IT market. "The reason for the reduced desktop demand are firstly, the falling prices of laptops and secondly the advertisements have created awareness among the end users. And these factors accounts for the increasing demand for laptops," said Ashutosh Singh of Computer India.
To address the grievances of Eastern UP IT Dealers Association was formed in 1998. Although 70 partners are currently registered members of the association, it is currently inactive.
http://www.channeltimes.com/India/Event/Service_A_Issue_in_Varanasi/551-...
