By IANS
Mumbai : Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd, which shook India’s laptop market last year with a notebook computer for Rs.19,999, plans to go a step further by launching a compact laptop costing around Rs.15,000 by mid-2008.
ACi’s chairman-cum-managing director Hirji Patel told IANS that following a good response to the sub-20k range of laptops, the company will open its own showrooms all over India and enter into tie-ups with supermarkets or malls and retail showroom franchisees.
It also plans to set up a manufacturing unit exclusively for laptops in Thane district, adjacent to Mumbai.
“We plan to increase our production from the existing 10,000 laptops to 100,000 per year. As a first step towards achieving this, we hope to garner Rs.60 million through the IPO which opened Friday,” Patel said.
ACi and Patel, an NRI from Britain, first shot into limelight when they introduced arguably the cheapest notebook, costing Rs. 29,999 in India in 2004, sending prices of PCs crashing in the country.
Patel managed to cut costs through innovations like providing an aluminium body rather than fibre or plastic.
Within the first three quarters of 2006 ACi captured 40 percent of the estimated total market of 250,000 laptops from the small and medium enterprises (SME) segment in India in which it operates.
“Now, the hostility to laptops in the Indian market has disappeared, customers are choosing a laptop over a PC since the price barrier between them has been erased,” Patel said with a smile.