Consumers are looking to upgrade their PC components to extend their computing devices’ life and enhance productivity, according to the recent ‘PC Health and Upgrade’ study1. The research found that over 51 per cent of the respondents feel that upgrading from HDD to SSD is critical for enhancing their PC performance. However, more than 80 per cent of PCs in the country are still supported by HDDs, and 4 in 5 PCs have 500GB as internal capacity, both of which exacerbate performance-related issues in PCs.
Predominantly used for productivity linked applications, the survey also finds that a PC has become an all-purpose device today. Consumers buy PCs and laptops for a variety of reasons such as, generic computing (62.5 per cent), productivity (59.3 per cent), entertainment (57.6 per cent), education (57.2 per cent), social networking (55 per cent), video conferencing (43.6 per cent), gaming (42 per cent), multimedia creation (36.6 per cent) and only 4.4 per cent of the respondents use them for other activities. Therefore, PC performance matters more than ever before, as the consumers want to do more in less time. Jaganathan Chelliah, Senior Director – Marketing, India & MEA, Western Digital, said, “The study has given us a lot of interesting insights about PC users In India. More than 40 per cent of PC users are spending 5 to 12 hours on their devices for a variety of tasks and therefore are seeking an upgrade in their PC performance. For Western Digital, these insights have enabled us to offer relevant storage solutions to consumers. For example, our WD Blue SSDs are designed specifically for productivity seekers and content creators who want both performance and reliability”
Khalid Wani, Senior Director – Sales, India, Western Digital, said, “We are continuously introducing innovative products to address consumers’ different needs. For PC upgrade, we have an entire portfolio of WD Blue SSDs, both SATA and NVMe, to help consumers spend less time worrying about their PCs health and more doing what they love.” Laptop users are also looking for enhanced battery life. As per the study, battery runs for almost twice as much time with WD Blue SATA SSD2 compared to when using an HDD. In India, about half of the laptops being used (46 per cent) are either more than three years old or are due to be three years old in the next six to nine months. As a result, the users have already started experiencing performance issues. They are considering buying new laptops or upgrading critical components to improve the device’s performance. According to the study, upgrading to an SSD increases the overall desktop performance by up to 80 per cent.
The study included inputs from 2,000 laptop consumers who were using their computing devices for at least one year across key Indian cities such as Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Indore, Jaipur, and Lucknow, amongst others. The ‘PC Health and Upgrade’ study1 also included 500 users who additionally owned a desktop.