PC maker HP sees India market doubling in 5-7 years

The PC market (desktops, notebooks, workstations) in the country has seen growth decline over the past year as the pandemic-era surge in demand ebbed. However, computer maker HP sees it doubling over the next five to seven years as the PC market in India remains highly under-penetrated and there is a huge growth potential areas like small and medium enterprises.

"The PC penetration that we have in the country, if we were to count household penetration, we are still at about 18 per cent, whereas in the western countries, these numbers are about three-four times higher. So the opportunity that the PC penetration currently in India offers itself, we think in the next five to seven years the PC market can actually double in size," Vineet Gehani, senior director, consumer sales at HP India told THE WEEK.

According to International Data Corp (IDC), 13.9 million PCs were shipped in India in 2023, a 6.6 per cent decline from the 14.9 million units that were shipped in 2022. The research firm had attributed the drop to low market sentiments after the pandemic for the reduced consumer demand in the second half of 2022 and first half of 2023.

HP led the market with a share of 31.5 per cent in 2023. Lenovo was a distant second with a share of 16.7 per cent and third placed Dell had a market share of 15.5 per cent.

Gehani noted that despite last year's softness, HP as well as the wider industry was still operating at volumes over 50 per cent higher than pre-Covid. He remained confident of the market growing in 2024 and beyond and said the company would continue to be aggressive in terms of launching new products for the consumers here.

One area where HP sees huge growth opportunities is in the small and medium enterprises space.

"There are about 65 million SMEs in the country. We think that there is a huge scope for and we see SMEs are rapidly adapting to their IT infrastructure needs and want to be as digitised and automated and connected as possible. So, that's definitely a big area of growth," said Gehani.

HP has recently launched two new laptops in the Indian market - Omen Transcend 14, which is targeted at gamers, and Envy x360 14 inch, targeting creators. The USP of both the laptops is that they have AI (artificial intelligence) capabilities built in. The Envy x360, for instance, has Microsoft CoPilot button for AI on board.

"We see a big growing trend in the market of gamers wanting better devices, creators looking for the next level of technology, understanding their needs, almost throwing ideas in terms of adding to their own creativity, and productivity. The gamers also for example, are not only gaming, but actually also creating the gaming content on the devices and even monetising that. That's how big the gaming and the creators community is actually becoming. So these PCs are meant to give them the best experiences," noted Gehani.

Given the strong growth potential in India, HP intends to increase manufacturing in the country too. The company was among several others, which was last year granted approval under the upgraded production-linked incentive (PLI 2.0) scheme for IT hardware.

Gehani did not share specific numbers, but pointed out that there was already a huge element of 'make in India' that HP was doing in certain product categories and that would only increase over time.

The company has also entered the refurbished PC market in the country, where it offers HP-certified refurbished notebooks. The company is targeting consumers who have limited use cases and for whom affordability is a key criteria, for this business.

"We want to cover all the segments of the market and offer pretty much the complete portfolio to all our customer segments in need," he said.

These consumers could also potentially upgrade to newer PCs in future, in turn driving HP's sales.