Both technology and value are extremely important: HP India

NEW DELHI: HP has joined the race to provide the customers with low cost PCs. Its recent initiative was the launch of Compaq Presario notebooks priced at Rs 49,990. The company is targeting SOHO, SMB, education and sales personnel segments whose primary requirements are mobility and technology at an affordable price.

In an email interview with HP India Personal Systems Group Product Category Manager (Portables) Rajiv Grover, Karma Negi tried to find out more on the initiative of HP on the laptops front.

Q. What is the laptop market size in India and its growth rate?

The notebook market is poised for big growth in the country and this growth is occurring across segments. The portable market, which was earlier, dominated by the corporate and large business segment is now seeing growth across segments. The SMB and SOHO market seems to be growing at a very rapid rate. Education segment too has emerged as a strong segment for portables.

The laptop market, which was earlier a niche market is today expanding across segments and is getting segmented as well. The needs of these segments too are now differing. We have been leaders today in the portable market and would continue with our leadership position now across segments. Hence in a market that is getting segmented, it is important to have our proposition (product/technology and price) and communication suited to different segments in the market.

We have the largest range of products suited for different segments, i.e., corporate and large businesses; small and medium businesses and the SOHO + home consumer.

Q. Which is the major focus area (segment) for your company in laptops?

We are looking at a number of segments, i.e., corporate and large business, SMB, SOHO and education as important segments for growth. We have different brands (HP Compaq and Compaq Presario) offering different value propositions and also suited for different clusters of segments in the portable market. We have a different set of channel partners addressing different clusters of segment. We have a strong set of corporate and SMB resellers and a strong set of retail partners addressing the home and SOHO market.

Q. Can you elaborate your retail plans for laptop?

We have a set of exclusive retails across the country. A large number of these retails are highly focused on mobile technology and on portables. Some of these retails have separate portable corners within their retail outlets.

We have formed a club of mobile focused partners (both for retails and for our corporate/SMB partners) with whom we closely work on the portable category. This club is called the Mobile Moghul Club. We train these partners and their organizations on portables and on mobile technology and closely work with these sets of partners for market coverage.

Q. Will HP's strength be its price or technology while marketing laptops?

Technology is a very important component in this market. Mobility is not only confined to simple computing while one is mobile but much more. Technology is important to provide various benefits to the customer. These could be benefits required for niche segments or even the large set of users of portables within the market. Hence it’s important to straddle the price segment market as well. For HP both these segments are important.

Q. How competitive you are on technology front?

Technology for us quite important and we are extremely competitive. In fact we provide various technology solutions in the notebook category, which is not provided across. The Tablet in pure slate form being an example to this.

Both technology and value are extremely important ingredients in our proposition. For e.g. whereas a portables provide basic mobility to an individual, true mobility is when individuals can also be connected and can exchange data and access information at all times ‘ without being confined’, even while they are mobile. Whereas the wireless technology was extremely niche earlier, we have provided wireless notebooks on our mainstream and value notebooks as well. Technology resulting in a benefit to the customer where the customer does not have to pay more is an important aspect of our proposition.

Q. With Acer starting the price war among MNC brand by announcing sub-50K models, what's the road ahead?

This is not a price war but sub 50 K price point will help expanding the portable market. There is a market here and we have a very strong proposition to this market now with our sub 50 K notebook, which has been launched this month.

Q. Do you think assembled/regional brands can be a threat to branded, any day?

Not as of now. Since on component level local sourcing is quite restricted in the category they may not be a big threat. A notebook user is also quite quality conscious and its imperative for the assembled/regional player to have quality and technology as an important aspect in its offering.

Q. What are your marketing plans as far as the channels are concerned?

Channel for us is an extremely important component of our game plan. As elaborated earlier we have formed a separate club of mobile focused partners: The Mobile Moghuls with whom we work very closely. We help these partners with competencies required to address various segments in this market and keep them highly motivated on our notebook business.

There are special incentives and special deliverables for these partners.

Besides these we have a large set of partners with whom we engage and run various programs to expand our business and market coverage.

(Cyber Media News Service)