Laptop market to reach US $ 220 m

Indunil Hewage

The laptop market in Sri Lanka is expected to reach US $ 220 million by 2014. The total laptop market value for 2010 has reached to US $ 50 million so far. “Laptop imports to Sri Lanka have increased this year owing to the rising demand from local consumers. There is a high growth in the Sri Lankan laptop market, where the contribution of the North and the East is far significant for this growth,” PCH Chairman S H M Rishan said.

Rishan said it is arguable that whether laptops can replace desktops in the market, since laptops and desktops are used by two different segments of customers for two different purposes. Sri Lanka has imported 101341 laptops from January to August this year as against 18176 laptops imported to Sri Lanka in 2009.

The value of laptop imports during the year 2009 has recorded Rs 952 million. Sri Lanka imports laptops mainly from Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, China and India.

Rishan said the addressable Sri Lankan ICT market is over US $ 308 million of which 70 percent is hardware. Sri Lanka is expected to sell 650,000 personal computers by 2014. More than 350,000 personal computers have been sold in 2009.