HP to focus on upcountry market

Timing its move with the government’s decision on duty cuts, HP India is
now all set to enhance its focus on the upcountry market. With its channel
network spread all across the length and breadth of the country, the company has
devised a strategy to envisage selling products in the far-flung areas of India.
Besides, it has a number of new initiatives planned out which will be rolled out
in the next few months. CyberMedia News caught up with HP personal systems group
VP (marketing and sales) Jim McDonnell for an insight.

l What is the
prime focus for HP at present? To what extent have you reduced the price-point
after the duty cuts?

India is a country where HP is counting on growth in a big way. Especially
the upcountry market, where the business is moving now and we have a clear focus
towards catering to that segment. Our PC business in India has grown more than
30% over the last quarter and this is quite impressive, when we look at the
worldwide growth for HP, which is at 10 percent during the last quarter. Moving
forward, we are going to focus heavily on upcountry market and ideally, our
products should get to around 300 small and very small cities all over the
country.

Jim McDonnell

The recent duty-cuts have provided us with an ideal
opportunity to increase our focus on upcountry markets. About 12 % and up to 7%
in the desktop arena have slashed prices of portables. If we look at the
lowering of price-point, then this is a right moment for us to explore the not
so cash-rich markets. Now we are giving below Rs 30,000 system with a printer.

l What is your
opinion about the wireless market in India? Where exactly are the deployments
happening?

If we look at the current scenario, there is less than one percent, when it
comes to home penetration. So there is a huge opportunity lying in front of us.
Wi-Fi deployments are happening in areas like education and retail.

We are working to wirelessly enable two campuses in south
India. So, wireless adoption is happening in India, but it’s all in bits and
pieces. Indian market needs to mature to a certain level to fully realize the
potential of wireless technology. We have products like a wireless printer ready
for launch, but we will only launch it when the right moment comes and the
market grows to a certain level.

l How do you
compare the Indian and Chinese markets?

We have a huge manpower base of close to 10,000 employees in India, though I
don’t have the exact number of employees that we have in China, but that
number would be quite less than this.

If we look at the Chinese market, then it’s noteworthy to
say that China opened up about two years back and India is still in the process
of doing that. So that way, Chinese were ahead of Indians, but India is catching
up with them quite fast. India and China together represent a sizable force to
reckon with and we know that this is where our future growth engines are.

l Today after
sales service has become a very important issue. How strong are you on that
front?

But of course, support is a very important area for us. In fact, this is an
important part of our program and we are working with our team to bring out
innovative strategies.

l What kind of
new initiatives do you have for the channel community?

We have planned out a number of things, which can be categorized in three
product specific areas. Firstly, we have mobiles, color servers etc. We will
have specific programs for channels. Secondly, our focus will be on how to build
closer ties with our existing partners and how to educate them and so on.
Thirdly, we plan to have more programs toward channel employees. Recently, we
re-launched our e-point program. Similarly, we want to employ such programs and
build excitement around them.

Zia Askari and Karma
Negi in New Delhi/CyberMedia News