Thaindian News

Kolkata, June 20 (IANS) Buoyed by the launch of new ultrabook models, technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) is eyeing 21.5 percent market share in the consumer notebook segment in India by the year-end, a top executive of the company said Wednesday.

“Consumer notebook segment will be close to 3.5 million units in 2012. In the January-March quarter, we had 19.5 percent market share in the segment. We are aiming to clock 21.5 percent market share at the end of this year,” Ashish Gupta, HP India category manager, Mobility and Alliances Personal Systems Group, told reporters here.

Gupta said the two new ultrabooks the company had launched this month would drive incremental volumes and growth in this market.

Currently, notebooks comprise about 70 percent of the company’s total sales. “Obviously, we would like to consolidate our market share. Ultrabooks will comprise 10 percent of our total volumes in notebook segments in 2012 and 15 percent in 2013,” Gupta said.

HP, which currently has more than 50 models in its notebook portfolio, has recently hiked prices by 2 percent to 3 percent following sharp rupee depreciation against the US dollar as it imports all its notebooks from China.

On further price increase, Gupta said: “Currently, rupee depreciation is very much impacting our industry. What we want to do as an organisation is to try and absorb as much price increase as possible. But at a point of time, we do need to pass it on if the rupee sheds its value continuously.”

He informed that eastern India was becoming more and more important for the notebook segment and the company made the region a strategic market. “Here, we will continue to invest in retail,” he said.

The company currently has 300 outlets on a pan-India basis. “In West Bengal, we have 16 outlets and in the next six months, we will open another five outlets,” Gupta added.