Sahara Computers aims it big

NEW DELHI: Sahara Computers and Electronics Ltd (SCEL), a JV partnership between the South African IT company, Sahara Computers (Pty) Ltd and Sahara India Parivar, has announced an additional investment of Rs 400 crore in the next three years to expand the PC market in India.

The company also launched a slew of products, including a hi-tech media center PC and tablet PC.

SCEL COO George Van Der Merwe said, “Given the advantage of local manufacturing coupled with the strength of our expertise in R&D function, we are aiming for market leadership in the PC segment by the year 2007. We expect to grow the PC market in India and are aiming at reaching out to the B, C and D class towns by educating the masses in these towns.”

In order to reach out to the B, C and D class towns, Sahara plans to start Project Goldmine aimed at covering 700 towns across India. This would also lead to the expansion of Sahara's service network across these towns.

Van Der Merwe said that we would invest Rs 150 crore for this expansion and would employ 1,400 people directly and 600 employees in reverse integration. “We are currently identifying 700 towns which can be developed and made sustainable i.e. where at least two-three PCs can be sold on a daily basis,” he added.

Keeping the TAM growth rate of 35 per cent YoY in mind, SCEL has adopted a two-pronged strategy to address the Indian market. According to Van Der Merwe, the company has already tied up with over 6,000 conventional IT channel partners with one national distributor, SES Technology.

“We plan to invest Rs 150 crore to expand this market and take our total channel base to 15,000 by 2008,” he added.

For the expansion of unconventional channel route the company plans to invest Rs 150 crore. The company is also betting big on the retail market in India.

SCEL would invest Rs 100 crore in expanding the retail segment. The company plans to tie up with middle and lower middle segment retail stores like Vishal Mega Mart. SCEL would also set up Next store — a multi-branded while goods chain of stores all over India.

The company is targeting to set up 500 Next store branches in the next two years while the end goal is 1,000 branches all over India.

The company also announced the launch of Spectra Media Center Edition sporting Intel Pentium 4 processor with HT technology. Priced at under Rs 60,000, this PC comes pre-loaded with MS Windows Media Center Edition OS.

Sahara has also introduced the NB2630-N7 tablet notebook powered with Intel Pentium M Dothan 1.7 GHZ processor. The Wi-Fi tablet notebook is priced at Rs 69,995 and comes preloaded with Microsoft Windows Tablet PC Edition OS. The company also launched NB5240-N9, AMD Turion powered notebook. Priced at Rs 49,999, this notebook comes with preloaded Microsoft Windows XP Professional OS.