By Ramdas S
With the share of desktops shrinking, component vendors are urging system builders to focus on high-performance PCs to sustain their business.
“The trend clearly indicates that the desktop market is shrinking, and the market is shifting to notebooks. This means that the average system builder will need to look at niche avenues to make money,” said Shane Dennison, Marketing Manager, Corsair Asia. “We see performance and professional gaming PC market as the growth area for system builders.”
Agreed Abhishek Kejriwal, GM, Tirupati Enterprises, “The traditional base of home users that system builders sold to is now buying branded PCs, as there is little price difference. Hence, to survive system builders will have to look at new markets. The gaming PC market is one such opportunity.”
A perceived advantage for system builders in catering to the gaming PC market is that it’s a segment that the large PC vendors have difficulty in targeting. “While most vendors have gaming PC models, their inventory cycles do not allow them to add new models rapidly. This is where the white-box makers can score, as they can deliver custom-built models faster,” opined Dennison.
AMD is urging its partners to focus on the performance PC market. “We have trained 2,000 partners on aspects such as over-clocking, choosing right components and other value additions,” said Deepanshu Sharma, GM, AMD India.
While there are no figures available of the size of the assembled high-performance PC market, Kejriwal estimates that India sells an average of 7,500 such PCs, every month. “Prices of these PCs range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh. So even if the volumes seem small, the value is high.”
Added Kejriwal, “Also, such customers are quite tech-savvy, and often contact you before you actually get the product yourself. They continuously upgrade PCs as they prefer the latest technology and this ensures repeat business.” |