Dell India on Monday said that it targets to be among the top three tablet players over the next 18 months. To achieve the target, the company launched three new tablet computers priced between Rs 10,999 and Rs 26,499.

The company had earlier entered this market with Latitude range of tablets but did not get much traction due to high pricing.

“In the next 12-18 months, we would like to be a leading player and among the top three companies in the tablet category. The market is already more than four million units and it is growing. We have 1.5 million addressable markets for us (in the same price category) and we can give a choice to such customers,” P. Krishnakumar, Executive Director and General Manager - Consumer and Small Business, Dell India, told Business Line here. Dell will launch a fourth tablet model over the next few weeks aimed at the premium segment.

Brand building He said the company is already a leading player in the laptop market, it would leverage that experience through its channel partners for the tablets. There would also be a lot of online and offline campaigns to build this brand for tablets, he said.

Krishnakumar said the new range of devices in the new-year would help the company grow and meet more customers’ needs in a market like India.

However, the first thing to do is to create awareness about Dell is there in the tablet category, and then educate people that this product is available.

“The consumers influence at the retail store is important and through our strong retail network with our laptops, we intend to leverage to ensure that we are able to communicate to our consumers about these products,” he said.

Exclusive stores The company will also expand its exclusive stores that sell laptops, which would also sell these tablets. He said Dell would have 200 exclusive stores by end of February from close to 160 right now.

Apart from these, it is also present in large format stores with Croma and Reliance, and 9,000 multi brand outlets.

“We believe that by keeping access of the tablets to these outlets, we should be able to get a fair share of the tablet market,” he added.

According to analysts, Dell has entered the Indian tablet market well in time as now is the time for such brands to launch tablets after majority of the market being flourished by low-cost tablet makers.

“These will be an add-on products to the existing market as many of the Chinese made tablet importers not gaining market share now and some even going off this market. But, brands such as Dell and Hewlett Packard, there will be better choices as these companies know how to play in the markets with being in the PC markets for long,” Manasi Yadav, Senior Analyst – Phones and Tablets at IDC India, said.

According to the latest report by Cyber Media Research, India imported 1.20 million units of tablets during July-September quarter in which Samsung led the market with 15 per cent market share. Lenovo India and Datawind were ranked second and third at 13.3 per cent and 12.4 per cent, respectively.

> ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

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