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Vishwanath Kulkarni

The company intends to target key verticals such as banking and finance and oil sectors and the Government and research laboratories through system integrators.

BANGALORE, March 13

IN a bid to enhance its market share, Acer India is getting aggressive in the notebook segment. The company, which has been a late entrant in the Indian market unlike its competitors such as Compaq, IBM and Toshiba, at present, has a market share of about 5 per cent. Acer introduced its notebook in India in early 2000.

``We expect to double our market share by 2003-end,'' said Mr S. Rajendran, General Manager, Marketing, Acer India. The company was betting heavily on its system integrators (SIs) and expected to leverage their strengths to push notebook sales, he said.

The company intends to target key verticals such as banking and finance and oil sectors and the Government and research laboratories through system integrators. ``We are already getting a large number of enquiries from these verticals,'' he added.

Acer India has a tie-up with some 12-system integrators which include, among others, Wipro, CMC, PCS and Keltron. The SIs account for some 10-12 per cent of the notebook sales. ``We expect to double this to about 20 per cent this year,'' Mr Rajendran said.

As per IDC figures, Acer ranks fifth in the Indian notebook market with a market share of about 5 per cent, after Compaq, IBM, Dell and Toshiba. The annual Indian market in value terms is estimated to be around Rs 320 crore and is said to be growing around 12 per cent annually. The estimated market-size in volume terms is around 40,000, while about 10,000 notebooks are estimated to be imported into the country as personal baggage.

Mr Rajendran said the company was also planning to sell a package of features that normally comes with its hi-end notebooks, along with its mainstream products, which are in the mid-price range.

``We are selling a notebook with Pentium 4 and features such as CD read and write with a 15 inch monitor in the mainstream market positioned in the sub-Rs 1.8 lakh range. This is being done to provide the latest technology to the customers at an affordable price,'' he said.

Acer India is expecting a growth of little over 10 per cent for the current financial year.

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