The global economic crisis, which has led to slowdown in demand for PCs in the Indian market for the past few quarters, has also caused a shuffle amid lead PC manufacturers in terms of market share.

According to the data by research firm IDC, during the quarter ending March 2009, as many as three of the top five vendors saw a decline in their market share.

This is despite the quarter showing some signs of improvement compared to the previous two quarters. In the fourth quarter of the financial year 2008-09, PC shipments stood at 16.7 lakh units, down 19% year-on-year but up 7% sequentially.

According to IDC figures, Dell, which jumped to second position for the first time in the October-December 2008 quarter, slipped back to the third spot in quarter ending March with a market share of 9.7%. HCL Infosystems was a close second with a share of 9.8%.

On the other hand, HP maintained its lead and even gained share in PCs (desktops and notebooks) with a market share of 18.2%, up from 15.6% in the December 2008 quarter.

?Going forward, hardware in general and PC shipments in particular will continue to remain under pressure. Winners would gain market share and improve profitability through the right price/volume mix and optimal exploitation of supply chain efficiencies,? said IDC India country manager Kapil Dev Singh.

Other two players which saw their market share slip were Acer and Lenovo. While Acer?s market share dipped marginally to 7.3% in the fourth quarter of FY 2009 from 7.7% in third quarter, Lenovo?s share showed a more pronounced drop of 1.9 points.

The company?s market share was down from 6.6% in third quarter to 4.7% in fourth quarter according to the report.

?With the twin forces of market de-growth and loss of share, vendors who do not occupy a clear niche in customers? minds would be under pressure?, said Singh.

The report added that over the next two quarters, vendor positions in the India PC market would be largely determined by how well they are able to exploit the opportunities presented by the consumer, education and government segments.