As sales in Tier 3 and 4 markets soar, Intel’s going after the next 20 mn households that lie beyond the central core 8-10 mn that are already sold on PCs/laptops. By Prashant L Rao
“Of the 220 mn households in India, there’s a central core that’s aware of PCs numbering 8 to 10 mn. They will buy whatever technology comes to the market. The next 20 mn are the ones who are undecided and those are our target segment,” said B Suryanarayanan, Director – Sales, Intel South Asia.
There’s an uptick in Tier 3 and 4 markets where PC/laptop sales are growing much faster than in Tier 1 & 2 cities. In these markets, computers are being bought by students. “The feedback that we get is that, while the kids know how to use PCs, their parents aren’t comfortable with traditional PC user interfaces. Therefore, we have created Darpan, a Google Chrome extension, that’s been customized with Indian languages,” he added.
Laptop sales are on a roll
Notebook sales are growing faster than those of desktop PCs. Netbooks have stabilized at 10-12% of the laptop market. The PC market would be about 11 mn plus this year and laptops would be about 4.5 to 5 mn of that.
It’s interesting to note that consumer adoption of laptops is higher than that by companies. The shipment split is 65:35 favoring the consumer market. “Today, you buy a laptop and bring it to work. The consumerization of IT is driving laptop sales,” commented Suryanarayanan. Then there are the sales to MBA students and the like that are also fueling the laptop market.
Many state governments including those of Tamil Nadu and UP have moved to handing out laptops. “The government of Goa, which used to give desktops, is also handing out laptops,” he added.
Ultrabooks: more SKUs coming
“The Ultrabook is about speed, response time, battery life and security,” said Suryanarayanan. These products have been around for a couple of quarters and Intel said that more SKUs were on the way including convertibles with touchscreens and enterprise editions. Intel’s contention is that sales of Ultrabooks will take off in H2.
A related trend is that of SSD usage in laptops. Apparently, in Intel, all employee laptops come with SSDs. Ultrabooks, of course, generally come with these drives (though not all).
The first generation of thin-and-light laptops from Intel was based on ULV processors and, while it delivered in terms of longer battery life, performance was so-so. This time, Intel promises that things are going to be different thanks to Ivy Bridge, which comes with substantially better overall performance as well as beefed up graphics. “The transistors are three-dimensional bringing down power consumption tremendously. We will be able to commit 10-12 hours of battery backup without compromising on performance,” said Suryanarayanan.
Assembled AIOs
On the AIO front, Intel’s bullish and it is going out of its way to get this segment of the market moving upwards. “Last year about 250,000 AIOs shipped. The upside is huge,” said Suryanarayanan.
Intel’s counting on the channel to deliver on the AIO front. “Channels thrive on being on the leading edge. People go to the white box suppliers when they want customized configurations. We conduct extensive hands on training and give them product catalogs etc,” said Suryanarayanan.
Apparently, standard building blocks go into AIOs so that you can remove the motherboard or hard drive and upgrade it.
“It’s not just a consumer play. We are seeing adoption in government, enterprise and BPO outfits. The Government of Karnataka has given an AIO to every secretary,” he added.
Vertical-wise strategy
In terms of market opportunities there are areas that are clearly growing. Surveillance is one such area. “It’s not about putting in a camera. You need the analytics. In apartment complexes and the like, there’s scope for partners to offer services around surveillance,” said Suryanarayanan.
Intel’s working with QNAP and other NAS players in the surveillance arena.
Then there’s retail where it sees an opportunity in terms of POS and retail kiosks. “ECRs cost Rs 20,000. Our POS solution costs Rs 30,000-40,000 but it’s a lot more capable. Probably, GST will be an inflection point for the POS solution,” added Suryanarayanan.
The Cloud gets its due with a Cloud Builder program that gives partners step-by-step instructions on how to deploy a private Cloud. These are Intel-certified solutions.
Not to be ignored is education, which accounts for over a million PC units every year. “We are working directly with education departments as well as education service providers. Some departments are asking us for a combo product and we have come up with the projector PC. Globus is working on that,” said Suryanarayanan.
Intel recently launched the Classmate PC laptop. “It’s got the Intel learning series so that the student and the teacher can collaborate. The teacher can ping students individually and give them assignments. We are working Lenovo, Connoiseur etc here,” concluded Suryanarayanan.
