Laptop sales in India catch up fast with Pcs
Indians could be buying as many laptops by 2010 on the back of dropping prices and improving usability, said a senior offical from HP. The US-based company, which replaced Dell as the world’s top computer maker last year, accounts for 21% of overall PC sales and close to 40% of notebook PC sales in India.
Mr.P.Raghuraman, Country manager, business notebooks, Hewlett Packard India Sales, said Laptop sales is fast catching up with desktop sales in the country, driven by multiple factors. Even six quarters ago, for every one laptop sold in the country, there were 19 desktops. Today it has come down to 3.5. He said that they expected laptop sales to equal desktop sales, by 2010.
Plunging cost is one of the key drivers. He said that the people could get a notebook PC for less than Rs.25000 which was not the case earlier. In developed markets such as the US and Europe already laptops sell as much desktops. In Japan, laptop outsell desktops.
Increasing demand from enterprises is another key driver. Availability of telecom connectivity and Web-based software allow employees to work from anywhere, and companies increasingly go for laptops for the productivity gains. Besides, other factors such as lower power costs and space requirements are pushing up the demand, Mr.Raghuraman said.
The notebooks market is also maturing in the country. HP’s move to segment the market into business and consumer segment is paying off, he said. While home segment demanded functions such as connectivity to entertainment devices such as television, for commercial segment ease of use, security and reliability are key, he said.
The computer maker had recently regrouped its business notebooks to four categories - standard, business, professional and workstation. According to IDC, HP was followed by HCL at 13.5% and Lenovo at 9.5%, in terms of unit shipments during FY07 in the overall PC market. In the notebook PC market HP had a market share of 39.6% in FY07 in unit shipment terms, followed by Lenovo (17.6%) and Toshiba.
