Asus India’s notebook and tablet growth strategy will rely on tier II and III cities across the country.
The company is generating maximum revenue from cities / towns such as New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Calicut, Goa, Thane, Raipur, Bhillai, Gurgaon, Durgapur, Kanpur, Cochin, Kolhapur, Noida, Pune, Amravati, Kottayam, Lucknow, Jaipur, Mysore, Guwahati, Dehradun, Belgaum, Hubli, Gwalior, Anand, Warangal, Kannur, Coimbatore, Burdwan, Imphal, Agartala, Ludhiana, Nashik, Siliguri, Nagaland, Chennai and Shillong.
Unaez Quraishi, sales and distribution director – System Business Group, Asus India, said: “We depend on channel partners for our growth in these towns. They can spend substantial amount of time on explaining the key benefits of Asus products to customers.”
Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore may not produce enough revenue for Asus because customers in metros are more conscious about brand than quality. Plus, channel partners may not enough time to spend on Asus.
“Asus stands for quality. That’s we are growing substantially in India despite challenges in the PC market,” said Apratim Sharma, country product manager – System Business Group, Asus India.
At present, Asus has around 80 exclusive stores in India. The PC maker plans to have 200 stores by the end of 2013. But there are challenges in increasing the number of stores.
Such Asus stores feature the company’s entire range of notebooks / netbooks and intend to cease customer’s search for the best available option.
“We need to convince our partners to invest in the eco-system. We prefer to work with partners who are already selling Asus notebooks and tablet PCs through their channels,” Sharma said.
Asus confident about India
Several developed markets are facing slow growth in PC segment. Quraishi of Asus says the company is growing in India thanks to its innovative notebook and tablet range. “Cost is not a concern for majority of consumers in the country,” he says.
Gartner says India performed slightly better due to a state PC tender fulfilment in the second quarter of 2013. In fact, the Asia/Pacific PC market declined 11.5 percent to 26.8 million units in the second quarter of 2013 from the first quarter of 2012. Excluding India, all country markets across the region showed weakness.
Asus global market share
According to Gartner’s preliminary worldwide PC vendor unit shipment estimates for Q2 2013, Asus has 6 percent market share. Asus showed steep declines compared to the second quarter last year. The decline was partly affected by its strategies to exit the mini-notebook market. ( Lenovo beats HP to regain lead in PC market share in Q2 2013 )
Canalys says PC market (desktops, notebooks and tablets) will have 493.1 million unit shipments in 2013, increasing 7 percent year-on-year.
The key driver behind this growth will be tablets, which will account for 37 percent of the market, up from a quarter in 2012.
In 2017, 713.8 million PCs will ship worldwide (a CAGR of 9.7 percent), with 64 percent being tablets and 25 percent notebooks.
In the first quarter of 2013, the desktop market fell 10.3 percent and the notebook market declined 13.1 percent. The size of the tablet market, however, more than doubled in Q1 2013, with a 106.1 percent increase in shipments to 41.9 million units.
In 2013 tablet shipments will reach 182.5 million units, with global tablet shipments surpassing those of notebooks in the final quarter of the year. ( HP, Dell, Acer and Asus PC shipments dip in Q1 2013, Lenovo reports flat growth )
How dollar punctures business
A couple of smartphone makers increased price of their handsets due to dip in rupee value.
Asus is not passing the pressure to end-consumers. The company will not increase the price of products though there’s enough pressure on its margin due to erosion in value of rupee. Asus is strengthening its presence among Indian youth through its tie up with Hindi movie Chennai Express.
Asus is also planning to introduce new products aimed at the forthcoming festival season.
The notebook maker is also strengthening its channel presence. Compuage is the national distributor and authorized service provider for its range of notebook and tablets, along with Digicomp.
Service providers include Rashi, Digicom, Neoteric and others which are strategically placed at 60 different locations within 40 km range to provide better customer services.
Baburajan K
editor@infotechlead.com
