Asus India believes the domestic market for laptops is big enough for it to nudge its supplier in China to set up a manufacturing unit in India, said Peter Chang, Regional Head-South Asia, Asus.

In an interview to Business Line in Coimbatore, he put his company’s market share in the laptop space — the other key players are HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer — at around five per cent. It plans to raise it to 10 per cent during the current calendar by doubling the number of exclusive stores to 200 and by increasing the number of channel partners.

Asked what the imminent exit of Sony from the laptop segment meant, he said this was a ‘good opportunity’ for the Taiwanese company to ‘invest more in this market’.

Early this year, Sony announced its decision to exit from the laptop business globally (it owns the popular Vaio brand), citing the shift towards mobile devices. Sony India expects to stop selling Vaio from June-July. Asked the tablet or laptop question, Chang, who is also Country Manager, System Business Group, Asus India Pvt Ltd, said both were complementary. Laptop was more for content creation whereas tablet was a ‘consumption device’, used to access the internet or mail. He expected them both to co-exist since their applications were different.

Play catch-up

Chang said Asus would try to catch up with HP, Dell and Lenovo in the laptop segment in India. While the economic slowdown did hit the devices market, like other products, presence in multiple segments such as laptops, tablets, and hybrids, had cushioned the impact.

. The laptop market had been flat but together with tablet and hybrids, the overall device market would grow 15 per cent. Asus also plans to bring more products to India, including smartphone, which it has launched globally.

Asked why products like laptops are cheaper in the US or have better specs than similar products sold in India in the same price bracket by the same manufacturer, Chang said the tax structure and the channel margins were different. For instance, laptops attracted an import duty of around 10 per cent in India, whereas in Europe, no duty is levied, he said.

On establishing a manufacturing facility in India, Chang said the company was discussing with its supplier in mainland China. He said the Indian devices market was ‘big enough’ to achieve economies of scale for a manufacturer, but what was needed was a favourable business environment.

On Saturday, Asus launched its 100th store in India, in Coimbatore, to market its entire range of touch books, ultrabooks, and tablets.

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