The Home PC Family

Who is the prospective home PC consumer? Are the kids of today influencing their parents to purchase a PC? What does the family with a PC look like? Who is the head of the family and who is the real decision maker? 



These are important questions, since the PC in the Indian market is now evenly poised between playing the role of a consumer good and a business productivity tool. The PC is no more the domain of stuffy commercial establishments or the elitist ‘thumb in the nose’ rich. It is now veering on becoming an integral part of the range of convenience goods to be found in most aspiring households. A necessary device for the expanding horizons of the wage earners and the youth of today!


In order to portray the inside story of the PC at home, DATAQUEST conducted a survey of 300 households from November 1999 to February 2000 (Also refer to DQ, May 15). What follows is a description of the aspiring PC households and their members. Which are the households most likely to be PC owners of tomorrow? Read on for an overview of what constitutes the fastest growing market segment for the desktop PC.

PC, more a part of joint

family

Households with

joint families are more likely to be future purchasers of the PC. From the

sample of households surveyed, families with 4 to 9 members constituted 80% of

homes most likely to purchase a PC, indicating thereby that a PC is more likely

to be found in larger households in future. The closely-knit household of less

than 4 members, including parents and children constitutes less than 8% of the

prospective home PC buyers.

More than half of the prospective

PC buying households have more than one earning member, indicating a comfortable

state of household income. Half the number of such households are those with

only one earning member. While the majority trend is towards two earning members

in the family, only 10% of prospective households have both earning members with

professional qualifications.

Lastly, households with school going children

dominate as prospective PC buying households more than those with college going

youths.

Head of family is male, 40

plus

The typical head of the family in

prospective PC buying households is in the 41-45 year bracket. Other heads of

the family are above 35 years and below 50 years of age. Is the head of the

family and the primary wage earner coincident? Yes, in 90% of the prospective

households the primary wage earner and the head of the family are identical.

Moreover it is also a man’s world in these households. An overwhelming 98% of

the head of the family and the primary wage earner are males. And how upwardly

mobile are they? Not very, going by the incidence of credit cards. A majority

55% of prospective PC households have no credit card holders. Only close to 10%

of the households have two or more credit card holders.

Primary wage earner is

self-employed

So, what is the work profile of

the primary wage earner. The guy who is going to decide, what, when and how much

to spend up-on. The most likely profile is the self-employed business man. In

43% of prospective PC households surveyed, the primary wage earner was a

business man or a self-employed professional. Even for the secondary wage

earner, the most likely work profile is self employed. The other likely work

profiles for the primary wage earner are engineer and government servant. For

the secondary wage earner, the other likely professions are teaching and

marketing.

Primary and secondary wage

earners are grads

What is the educational

background of the primary wage earner? Among the households most likely to

purchase a PC, the primary wage earner is typically a graduate or a

post-graduate. However, in comparison, the incidence of graduates and

post-graduates is higher among the secondary wage earners. For higher technical

education like engineering and doctorate, the incidence is higher among the

primary wage earners. The age of the primary wage earner matches the profile of

the head of the family. The typical age of the primary wage earner is between 35

and 45 years, and that of the secondary wage earner is between 25 and 35 years.

Wipro, top home PC brand

From the

installed base of PCs among the households surveyed, Wipro was found to be the

most prolific PC brand. HCL and Zenith were the other widespread PC brands. For

these households, the PC brands with the most recall were HCL followed by

Wipro and Hewlett Packard.

Among the households with a PC, the desktop was

almost universally the home PC, the incidence of the portable being almost

non-existent. For the households surveyed with a home PC, the penetration of the

assembled PC was found to be 71% as against 29% branded PCs. The cities with the

highest penetration of the assembled PC were found to be New Delhi, Mumbai and

Calcutta. The cities of Chennai and Bangalore had almost equal incidence of

assembled and branded PCs.