By Priyanka Chowdhury
With enterprise PC adoption moving into a slowdown, HP plans to focus on driving its consumer PC business by expanding its retail footprint, creating new customer categories, and increasing on-ground marketing activities.
The company will add 1,000 retail outlets by the end of 2009, primarily in smaller cities. “We expect to see the semi-urban segments grow faster than tier-1 and -2 cities, and expect over 60 percent of our consumer business to come from smaller cities. Our aim is to add 100 exclusive stores and 900 non-exclusive outlets this year,” disclosed Rajiv Grover, Director, Consumer Products, HP PSG, India. At present, HP has a presence across 2,000 retail stores, with 170 exclusive stores.
Also on the cards is the creation of new customer categories. “Due to the slowdown, consumers have become quite rational about buying PCs, hence it is necessary for us to open new segments,” added Grover. “For instance, we are planning to target women as a separate segment. We also intend to tap the style-conscious by launching notebooks with unique designs, imprints, skins and colors. In addition, we are planning to add more value to our notebooks by offering things like longer battery life.”
HP is planning to expand its notebook category by adding new flavors. “With the success of the netbook, notebooks with smaller screen sizes, 11 to 12.2 inches, will be much in demand. We plan to launch slimmer and lighter versions of Pavilion notebooks like the dv2 we launched recently,” said Grover.
The company expects the nettop to do well. “With an entry-level price of Rs 17,990, our Compaq Mini Q Nettop is doing a decent 2,500 units a month,” Grover revealed. “With PC penetration lower than 10 percent in India, we expect the nettop and netbook categories to help boost PC sales. The launch of 3G by the end of July could increase broadband penetration manifold because the base of mobile phone users is huge. It will act as a great enabler for nettops and netbooks.”
He continued, “HP plans to tap alternate channels such as consumer durable and mobile stores. These stores have already started selling a sizable number of mobile PCs, and we believe the numbers will increase with a rise in netbook demand.”
The PC major recently rolled out an innovative road campaign. “With the slowdown, we believe that to get business we need to go to customers rather than wait for them to come to us. The new campaign involves displaying our latest consumer PCs in an AC van. These vans are parked at high-catchment areas such as malls and movie halls where customers can walk in and get a demo of a product,” explained Grover. |