Wipro Ltd., India's third largest IT major, has announced its plans to discontinue its PC manufacturing business, one of the foremost IT businesses of the company. The company's hardware division not catering to end consumers directly manufactures personal computers for different government agencies and enterprise in India. The decision is taken on the back of lower demand and hence resultant losses from its hardware business division.

The company reported declining sales from its PC business over the last 3 years and in the quarter ending June, sale of personal computers, including laptops and desktops, fell approximately 7% against the corresponding period last year. For the quarter ending September, the company's operating profit from the PC business accounted for below 2% of the total sales and revenue remained at $150 million.

As part of the decision, the IT major would discontinue the manufacture of SuperGenius desktop range, EGO laptops together with NetPower servers. The company's decision comes weeks after HCL Infosystem announced similar plans. In the filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange the company stated that "All the affected employees will be redeployed in the company".

In line with the decision Soumitro Ghosh, Senior Vice-president and Head of Wipro Infotech said "Our vision is to strengthen our position as a leading system integrator. Manufacturing our own PCs was not giving us a competitive differentiation in our system integration solution offering".

With Inputs from PTI