HP will go ahead with its plans to manufacture desktops and workstations in partnership with Flex at Sriperumbudur near Chennai from August.
HP has decided to set up its second manufacturing facility in Chennai after Pantnagar in Uttarakhand because of the geographical advantage of Chennai, which has three major ports, Hindu Business Line reported.
“We are focused on getting this facility in Sriperumbudur operational by August. HP has a longstanding and successful relationship with Flex in other parts of the world, an official with HP said.
HP rival Dell has a plant at Sriperumbudur. HP will be the second company to manufacture PCs in Tamil Nadu.
HP’s competitors, Lenovo and Acer, have manufacturing plants in neighbouring Puducherry.
Tamil Nadu government allowed all industries and export-oriented units in Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu (except containment zones) to function at 100 percent strength.
HP has been manufacturing PCs at its plant in Pantnagar since 2006. This facility will cater to markets in North India and the Sriperumbudur plant for South India.
HP’s facility in Sriperumbudur will create job opportunities in the manufacturing sector. This will also help in improving HP’s operational efficiencies in terms of improving their delivery turnaround time for the trade and consumers in South India, besides helping them save freight cost, they said.
HP in India PC market
The India PC market — desktops, notebooks, and workstations declined 16.7 percent in the first quarter of 2020 to 1.8 million.
This decline was registered across all product categories and can be attributed largely to the supply issues faced by the vendors due to COVID-19, which impacted the manufacturing and logistics arms of vendors in China.
The nationwide lockdown in India from the second half of March aggravated the problems further for PC vendors since it resulted in a complete halt of retail and commercial orders, IDC said.
HP retained the top position in the overall PC market with a share of 28.2 percent. HP has struggled with supplies of desktops, which led to fewer shipments than expected, and a 16.4 percent decline in shipments. Its notebooks also saw a marginal decline of 2.4 percent.
Dell Technologies replaced Lenovo in the second position despite witnessing a 16.5 percent decline in its overall shipments. Dell was able to secure supplies for certain categories on time, which helped the vendor to gain new orders that came to support the remote working requirements.
Lenovo finished the quarter in the third-place while declining 33.6 percent. Lenovo had ELCOT as a large education project in its portfolio in Q1 2019. Lenovo faced delay in deals, and supply constraints limited the delivery of new wins.
