Computer sales to continue growing by 20%

Sari P. Setiogi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Computer sales are likely to continue growing by an annual rate of 20 percent this year in spite of the current economic crisis, according to an industrial leader.

"We are optimistic that the sales of desktop computer sets will reach between 720,000 and 750,000 units in the year 2003 and laptops about 120,000 units," G. Hidayat Tjokrodjojo, chairman of the Indonesian Computer Entrepreneurs Association (Apkomindo), said on Monday.

He said that in 2002, the sales of desktop computer sets in Indonesia was estimated at about 600,000 units and laptops at about 60,000. These figures indicated a 20 percent sales increase on the previous year.

Branded desktop computers, like Hewlett-Packard and IBM, contributed about 40 percent to last year's sales of desktop computers and "generic" ones the remaining 60 percent, said Hidayat, also the treasurer of the Indonesian Computer Software Association (Aspiluki).

He said generic computers were those assembled domestically with imported components. Some of them were sold with national brands, like Zyrex, Mugen and Reliant, and some others with no brand names.

The robust growth was supported partly by the implementation of e-government by some provincial administrations after the introduction of regional autonomy in 2001, Hidayat said.

"Regional autonomy created decentralized administrations. And somehow it encourages them to introduce e-government," he said.

E-government is a breakthrough for regional administrations to promote their services for now communications with them can be conducted online. People can also get basic information about their regions simply through the internet.

Hidayat said computer sets equipped with Intel's Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 processors were more favored by buyers last year, as compared to Celeron processors.

He said the 20 percent growth in sales for the year 2003 could be achieved if the rupiah's value against the U.S. dollar remained stable.

"It does not really matter on how much the rupiah's value will be as long as it does not fluctuate," he said.

He said the increasing use of e-government by provincial administrations as well as PDA (Personal Digital Assistants -- palm-sized digital organizers) and tablets (A-4 paper sized touch-screen devices which can convert handwritings into computer data) by executives would also help increase computer sales this year.

"Up to now, only about 20 percent of provincial administrations have used e-government and we expect many others will follow suit," he said.

Hidayat also said that national brands, such as Zyrex, Reliant and Mugen, would likely play a greater role in the domestic computer sales this year as users were getting aware of their competitive quality.

"In the past years, computers with domestic brands lost to those imported from South Korea merely because they did not have enough budget for big promotions," he added.