New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) Buoyed by increased demand from the corporate sector, sales of personal computers (PC), including netbooks, rose 42 percent in the third quarter of the current fiscal at two million units, an industry forum said Monday.

Desktop sales increased 27 percent at 1.35 million units. Netbooks and notebooks together recorded a sale of 6.6 lakh units, growing 90 percent respectively, compared to the like period in the previous fiscal, the Manufacturers' Association for Information Technology (MAIT) said in its quarterly report.

'All segments of the IT hardware industry - computers, peripherals and networking products recorded impressive growth in the third quarter. The corporate sector, which had displayed significant caution in IT-spending over the past five quarters, led the growth in consumption,' said Vinnie Mehta, MAIT executive director.

Telecom, banking, education, IT-enabled services and the e-governance initiatives of the central and state governments were the main consumers.

'The industry is hopeful that the sales would further improve in the fourth quarter. Overall PC sales for 2009-10 are expected to cross 7.3 million (73 lakh) units, registering a 7 per cent annual growth,' said Mehta.

The study collated data from major vendors and around 400 resellers in the top sixteen metros in India.

In the desktop computer market, smaller and lesser known regional brands and unbranded systems accounted for 35 per cent of the sales in third quarter, while branded desktops recorded 65 per cent.

MNC brands accounted for 52 per cent of the market, while Indian brands accounted for the rest 13 per cent.

Consumption of laser printers too witnessed an impressive growth of 70 per cent.

The UPS market grew by 28 percent on an annual basis in the third quarter of 2009-10, registering 5.6 lakh units in sales.