Indian home PC market warms up
Friday, May 21, 1999
PERSONAL COMPUTING
Indian home PC market warms up
NEWSBYTES
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The home PC market is finally heating up, with more and more PC manufacturers now fighting for their share of the segment from the grey market peddlers, who until now had a stranglehold on the infant market in India.
Riding on the encouraging trends from research analysts, are a slew of new home PC offerings with juicy price cuts from the vendors like Zenith Computers Ltd, Compaq Computer, and Hewlett-Packard.
Close on the heels of Compaq launching its first fully featured multimedia Presario 4010 for Rs45,900 (HK$8,300), Zenith Computers has announced the availability of its Pentium III PCs at an aggressive price of INR Rs49,999.
Currently at the lowest PC price slot among Pentium IIIs, the new machine features an Intel 450 MHz PIII processor, 512 KB cache, 32MB SDRAM, 4.3 GB HDD IDE, 1.44 MB FDD, 14-inch color monitor, 104-key keyboard, mouse multimedia kit comprising of a 32X CD-ROM, sound card and stereo speakers.
Explaining the new strategy of positioning PCs as a consumer products, Raj Saraf, chairman and managing director, Zenith Computers says, "With the new upgrades and technology, changes becoming a norm in the personal computing industry, it is imperative that PC companies in India take the initiative and revise their pricing structure."
Flaring the aggressive pricing strategy is the IDC survey, according to which about 74 per cent of the market - estimated at Rs200,000 in December 1997 - is for the entry-level machines priced below Rs50,000.
About 50 per cent of the home PC market is for machines below Rs40,000. The total PC market is expected to grow at 43 per cent in 1999, but the home PC segment is expected to leap by almost 92 per cent.
Compared to the 165,000 PCs sold in 1998, the home PC market would absorb some 314,000 machines this year and nearly half-a-million in 2000. Over the five-year period, 1997-2002, India would be fastest growing (admittedly on a small base) market in the Asia Pacific, compounding at 31.3 per cent annually.
Earlier Compaq had pulled its Presario in the Rs50,000 bracket which represents three-fourths of the Indian home PC market. Until the announcement, Compaq Presario was priced in the Rs65,000 plus category.
According to Som Mittal, managing director, Compaq India, "For the first time in India a global PC brand would be offering the best product at the best price in the market."
The Presario 4010 features an Intel Celeron 366 MHz processor, 32 MB SDRAM, 32X CD-ROM drive and a 4.3 GB hard disk.
The price competitiveness is specially relevant to India which houses the most price sensitive market in the Asia Pacific region.
In India, nearly 74 per cent of the market consists of the entry level machines compared to only 42 per cent in China. Mr Mittal further pointed out that the country would remain the most important market in Asia for home PCs, for Compaq over the next five years.
Meanwhile Hewlett-Packard is offering its Pavilion 4403 series which features an AMD K6/2 333 MHz processor comes bundles with an HP printer, for Rs49,999.
According to Ravi Aggarwal, VP (computer products, HP, "The Indian PC market has been divided between the MNC and the Indian brands. By meeting requirements of different customers' computing needs, strong brand name, aggressive pricing strategy and a large distribution network, we aim to become a dominant player in the PC market".
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