Hail Mobility!

Intels India story was about mobility. As laptop sales grew to 25% of all
PCs, and Intel earned $160 per laptopnearly double that for desktopshigher
margins made up for modest top line growth. Desktop growth, of course, was low,
in line with the market.

Two things worked for Intel. The strong 45 nm product line, the Core 2 Duo
products, gave Intel clear product superiority after a long time. The second was
AMDs poor show (and manager churn, and erosion of 5 points of market share).

This was Intels first full year with the new sales structure, with South
Asia divided into four territories (North, East and Bangladesh; South and Sri
Lanka; West and Central; and Pakistan).

What do sales and marketing do in a company with nearly 90% market share? Try
to grow the total available market. Joint events with channel partners were
held for Varanasis carpet makers and Surats diamond traders. Intel also worked
on getting broadband bundled, through OEMs and partners, as a key to the PC
experience.

Intel asked its top distributors to grow reach and share in tier-3 towns and
beyond. It launched a hinterland program, with hub-and-spoke distribution: a
city acts as a hub and smaller towns connect to it.

Rank-14

l Start-up Year: 1988
l Products & Services: Processors,
platforms, boards, R&D l
Branches:10 l Employees: 2,500
l Address: 23-56P,
Deverabeesanahalli, Varthur Hobli Outer Ring Road,
Bangalore-560037 l Fax:
+91-80-26056190 l Website:
www.intel.com

size=1>Highlights

n
Benefited from shift to
laptops (now 25% of India PC sales), with $160
realization per laptop for Intel, versus $85 per desktop

n Praveen
Vishakantaiah took over as Intel India president

n Launched
Atom processor (ultra-mobile applications) and quad-core
processors

n Over
60% of Intels global sales now in Asia-Pacific
(including Japan)

size=1>Strengths

p
Strong 45 nm product line
(Core2Duo)


p Overwhelming
market share; gained from AMDs decline last year


p Top
brand recall, unusual for an embedded product


p Significant
gains in servers across the spectrum

size=1>Weaknesses

size=1>q
Inconsistent channel expertise across the regions.

size=1>q Channel
strategy changes was a cause for concern

size=1>q Low
stability, churn in line managers

But the lack of channel expertise in some regions, frequent
changes of managers in others, and changes in channel models, caused
some rumblings among partners. Intel tried out a sub-disti model,
then withdrew it; it then re-introduced it, for the top eight
cities.

Intel also launched its low-cost, low-power Atom processors. Products based
on the Atom, such as mobile Internet devices and cheap desktops, are expected in
H2, 2008, opening up a new market.

And capping the previous years churn in senior managers, Praveen
Vishakantaiah took over as president, Intel India from Frank Jones last October.

The market is great for Intel India: full dominance, with just enough
marginal competition to keep things interesting. But with prices dropping,
Intels challenge will be to growth that market fast enough to keep revenue grow
level with the Indian tech industry.