Infotech Lead Asia: Intel’s PC partners – Acer, HCL and Sony — announced special schemes to push PC and laptop sales in India.
Market research agency IDC on Tuesday said the worldwide PC shipments are expected to fall by 7.8 percent in 2013. Most of the PC makers including Dell, Lenovo and HP rely on PC sales for their future growth, despite their efforts to diversify business. Since Intel is supplying processors, the chip major will have major concerns about declining PC sales.
Intel’s main worry is about the increased shift in consumers’ interest from PCs to tablets and smartphones. In both tablets and smartphones, Intel is yet to test waters.
In an advertisement on Thursday, the chip major announced special schemes for its computer partners such as Acer, HCL, Sony, etc.
For instance, Intel says Acer will offer additional two year warranty free on select Aspire E series and V5 series notebooks.
HCL is offering free edutainment pack worth Rs 14,000 and additional 2 year warranty with HCL All-in-One PC (AD1V0030) powered by Intel processors.
Sony is offering VAIO backpack and international warranty free with select Sony VAIO notebooks powered by Intel processors.
In addition, Reliance Communications is offering Rs 2,649 discount on 5GB/10GB data plans with unlimited streaming of movies on BIGFLIX (free for 1 month), when users buy Reliance Netconnect Dongle with a computer powered by Intel processors.
Croma is offering free accessories worth Rs 2,000 along with Intel processor powered notebook.
Intel says McAfee will offer discount on the purchase of McAfee anti-virus software retail pack along with Intel processor powered computers.
Ditto is offering 1 month free subscription of Live TV and on demand content through Ditto TV on purchase of Ultrabook powered by Intel processors.
Hungama is offering unlimited streaming of movies from 2500 titles for 1 month.
Intel posted PC Client Group revenue of $8 billion in the first quarter of 2013, down 6.6 percent sequentially and down 6 percent year-over-year. Intel is targeting to achieve total revenue of $12.9 billion, plus or minus $500 million in Q2. But PC sales will influence more than half of its revenues.
Announcing the quarterly revenue, Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said: “We shipped our next generation PC microprocessors, introduced a new family of products for micro-servers and will ship our new tablet and smartphone microprocessors this quarter.”
Intel is currently working with its customers to introduce innovative new products across multiple operating systems. Intel expects that the transition to 14nm technology this year will significantly increase the value provided by Intel architecture and process technology for customers and in the marketplace.
Intel will be spending around $4.7 billion towards R&D plus MG&A in the second quarter of 2013. Can Intel deliver better in coming months?
Baburajan K
[email protected]
