Infotech Lead Asia: Hewlett-Packard (HP) has captured 16.5 percent share in Indian PC market in Q4 2012, according to IDC.
To regain top position in the fourth quarter, HP gained 3.5 percent share on year-on-year basis.
Two weeks ago, HP CEO Meg Whitman said she’s not selling off chunks of the company — particularly not its PC business. Her predecessor, Léo Apotheker, had unveiled plans in 2011 to sell or spin out the PC unit of HP and later abandoned.
In fact, HP wants to play in the whole computer market — from the data center to the device. A large PC business helps HP keeps costs down for other products because of what Whitman calls device convergence. PCs and servers increasingly use similar, if not the same, components. Servers are being built on chips designed to run smartphones and tablets.
The fourth quarter surge in PC market share in India does not reflect HP’s global revenue from personal systems business.
HP’s Personal Systems revenue declined 8 percent in Q1. Total units were down 5 percent with Desktops units up 10 percent and Notebooks units down 14 percent.
HP reported 6 percent decrease in revenues at $28.4 billion in the first quarter. HP’s net income declined 16 percent to $1.2 billion.
Vinay Awasthi, senior director – Product Category, PPS, Hewlett-Packard India said, “2013 will be a successful year for us and we will live up to our customers’ expectations to come up with most innovative products.”
Globally, HP shipped 62 million PCs per week or 2 PCs every second, last year.
Venu Reddy, research director, IDC, said, “HP has moved into #1 place in CY Q4 2012 (Oct-Dec 2012) driven by strong sales/marketing campaigns and good mind-share among consumers. This momentum was driven by the fact that portable computers continue to gain in dominance among the PC market segments despite weaker overall PC marketplace.”
According to IDC, global PC shipments declined 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter to 89.79 million units from last year’s 95.91 million units.
IDC earlier said that the global PC shipments declined as consumers as well as PC vendors and distribution channels continued to be diverted from PC sales by ongoing demand for tablets and smartphones.
For global PC shipments in the fourth quarter, HP remained the top vendor but saw shipments edged down 0.6 percent, while China’s Lenovo Group remained at second spot with an 8.2 percent growth.
Dell, at third spot, reported 20.8 percent shipment decline, and stayed below the 10 million units per quarter mark, continuing to lose market share.
Taiwan-based Acer was at the fourth spot, with shipments dropping 28.2 percent, while ASUS, at fifth spot, reported a 5.6 percent growth.
HP strategies in India
HP in December 2012 announced its first ultrathin hybrid PC, HP ENVY X2, which offers advantages of two devices in one, along with a new portfolio of touch-enabled Ultrabook, notebooks and All-in-One PCs.
In January this year, HP announced its tie up with entertainment giants Universal Music India and Hungama.com to launch HP Connected Music. This subscription-based music service provides unlimited rental downloadable music free of charge for one year. This brand new service is available on selected HP notebooks with the embedded Windows 8 launcher.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
