India is likely to buck the worldwide trend and see  a huge increase in PC sales, according to analyst firm Gartner.

In a press release, Gartner said that that, aided by a surge in demand for laptops, India's PC market will grow by 13.7 per cent to 11.1 million units this year. It will not be companies that are doing the buying, but consumers and government departments, Gartner predicts.

The figures are similar to 2008, when India's PC market grew by more than 17 per cent to 9.76 million units. Sales of laptops are expected to grow by 37 per cent in 2009 to 3.69 million units, and will make up a third of India's PC market. Sales of the compact computer zoomed by 65 per cent to 2.7 million units last year.

Diptarup Chakraborti, Gartner’s principal research analyst, said that things should be sluggish in India for the first half of  2009, but will pick up in the second half.

This is based on the idea that the world economy will pick up in the middle of 2009 and the end of the year will see a splurge during Christmas.

Last year Gartner projected a 51 per cent increase in laptop sales, but revised it downwards due to the deteriorating economic environment. X