Back Within reach
Raja Simhan T.E.
| Convenience and productivity. Add to it falling prices - and the laptop is coming within the access zone for small businessmen, students, even housewives. More on the cool tool no longer carried only by the high-flying executive. |
WHEN luxury turns necessity and brings exotic stuff within reach, it gives one a great feeling. Ask Arun, who works for a Chennai-based Customs clearing and forwarding company. His joy knew no bounds when he, a junior officer, was provided with a laptop on joining the company.
But there's the flip side, too. Now he has a cherished laptop - and ends up working a frustrating 15 hours on it everyday.
The laptop, also known as a notebook PC, is no longer a luxury item as against the `wow' effect it had a few years ago. Much like other commodities, it is being displayed on the shelves of big supermarkets and retail shops, moving from the exclusive confines of exotic showrooms.
Earlier, when the word `laptop' was uttered, one could visualise only executives carrying it. Today all segments, including students and households, are buying these `notebooks'. For people on the move, the laptop has become an indispensable tool. What with overcrowded roads and traffic snarls, the average travelling time in metros such as Mumbai and Bangalore has only gone up. Here, the laptop is a cool tool that helps professionals to keep working and thus save time.
This also helps companies to keep their employees more productive, says an official with an IT company.
The numbers too capture the growing appeal of the laptop.
Notebook shipments touched 1.53 lakh (1,53,643) units between April and September 2005 compared to 79,230 units in the same period of the previous year.
"Notebook sales recorded a high growth of 94 per cent and also found their way into homes. In the first half of 2005-06, about 16,000 notebooks were sold to the household segment accounting for 13 per cent of the total market," MAIT has said, releasing the findings of Industry Performance Review conducted jointly with IMRB.
Piyush Pushkal, Senior Analyst, Computing Products & Channels Research, IDC India, has said in a release, "The momentum in the Indian notebook PC market is in sync with the worldwide trend of acceptance in the small and medium-size business segment, supplemented by bulk purchases by large enterprises. Clearly, notebook PCs are providing tough competition to the desktop segment due to the attributes of convenience and productivity."
Hewlett-Packard continues to lead this category with a market share of 42 per cent in unit shipments. Lenovo and Acer are at second and third slots with market shares of 18 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively (market share in terms of unit shipments). HP, along with Lenovo, Acer and Toshiba, grew rapidly in this space mainly due to falling price points, according to IDC.Data for Lenovo includes shipments for IBM PCD (including Desktop and Notebook PCs but excluding x86 Servers and Personal Workstations) starting Q2 of 2005. This reflects the legal status of the companies, which merged during the second quarter of 2005, says IDC.
Spurs that helped
Affordability, the increasing demand for mobile computing in a fast growing economy, the growth of wireless telephony in India and adoption of technologies such as wireless, are some of the key reasons for the increase in laptop sales.
The Government's step to deregulate the wireless spectrum and de-license wireless technologies such as 802.11b and 802.11g standards has helped too. And the price competitiveness of laptops vis-à-vis desktops has also played a major role, says Dinesh Pai, General Manager, Dell India.
Another important development was the coming in of the zero-duty regime in April last year — this has made laptops more accessible for the common man. The Indian customer is benefiting from the latest technology at the lowest price possible. Educational institutions and corporations are opting for laptops with wireless in a big way, says Pai.
Falling prices
Rajendra Kumar, Executive Vice-President, HCL Infosystems Ltd, the domestic PC manufacturer, says the starting price for a laptop now is around Rs 35,000 and it goes up to Rs 1.75 lakh, appealing to a wide spectrum of customers.With laptops being brought into the mainstream at almost half the prices as compared to a year ago, India's computer market is seeing exponential growth. A year ago, an entry-level laptop was at about Rs 45,000. Now it is available for under Rs 30,000. Next year, the laptop market is set for a larger pie of the household share as well, up from 12 per cent in 2005, says Rajiev Grover, Country Category Manager, Consumer Portables, Hewlett-Packard (HP).
India is a price-sensitive market, thus cost is certainly a key buying parameter. Zenith has launched Intel Centrino notebooks priced at Rs 39,990 with DVD combo optical drives, says Devita Saraf, Executive Director, Zenith Computers. Low-cost offerings will be a good catch for first-time laptop users, as a desktop replacement. But, any decision to buy notebooks should be made after considering various parameters.
In August 2004, Zenith launched laptops with the `Power of Seven'. Zenith has 450 dedicated retail stores and plans to grow to 1,000 stores by the end of 2006, says Saraf.
Laptops will not take away the desktop PC. The usage of the two depends on the user profile. Both will co-exist with their own benefits. A desktop has a higher probability of upgrades to increase its life with low maintenance costs, whereas laptop maintenance is higher than the desktop PC's. Even though laptops allow more mobility, they invite more physical security-related issues compared to desktops, he says.While the trend towards mobility will continue to grow, "we believe the PC will never die." The future of the PC, as we know it, is in smaller, more compact, lighter designs. The notebook of today is probably the best example of what the home PC will look like in the future, except that it will not cost as much. The other factor at play here is the effect of convergence and information appliances, says Dinesh Pai, General Manager, Dell India.
The PC of tomorrow will cease to be a be-all-do-all machine. The home PC would probably morph into a hub for `intelligent' home devices performing very specialised tasks. Add to this the capability brought on by the Internet and you have a laptop-like machine connecting various points around the house with the added element of mobility. However, this will take place over a few decades considering the high-low mix of technology around the world and within boundaries, he says.
Adoption of broadband, wireless and gaming are likely to drive demand for mobility products. Many customers may switch from desktops to notebooks due to better price propositions and the inherent advantages of mobility products, he says.
Increasing consumer awareness, combined with the availability of wireless hotspots in educational institutions, offices and hotels, will create an increasingly favourable environment for notebooks, he says.
Spotlight on security
As more computer users transition to sleek notebooks/ultra sleek notebooks and access networks from remote locations and public wireless networks, user and system security have become a top priority. There will be more demands from customers to protect their data, access, and network, he says.
HP plans
HP is looking at the media and entertainment space in a big way. To address this market requirement, "we recently launched our premium range of Pavilion notebooks. Priced between Rs 50,000 and Rs 70,000, the HP Pavilion notebooks come with a remote control, a neon backlit keyboard and a quick play option (entertainment-related software) to help users switch straight to, say, a movie, without waiting for the laptop to boot up." The downside is that the battery offers a low two-and-a-half-hours to three hours backup, says Grover of HP.
The threat of the unorganised sector is miniscule. Laptops are a high-involvement product and the consumer places a lot of emphasis on after-sales service and brand, which the unorganised market is unable to offer. With price cuts boosting the laptop market, companies do not see local PC assemblers as a threat.
Choose with care
DINESH Pai, General Manager, Dell India, offers some insight into making the right choice.It is critical to understand one's own specific needs while choosing a notebook. The priorities for mobile computing are weight, wireless performance and battery life. Weight is undoubtedly the most critical factor. One should also pay attention to the average run time of the notebook's battery as also built-in wireless functions.
Moreover, the processor, the memory capacity, scalability in a networked environment, the quality and size of display, the optical drives and pointing devices, power consumption, costs of usage, maintenance and a host of other factors determined by the specific set of needs of each customer should also to be taken into account while choosing a laptop.
As more computer users transition to sleek notebooks and access networks from remote locations and public wireless networks, user and system security will become a top priority, he says.
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