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Ambar Singh Roy

To focus on aftermarket segment

Singapore , May 21

To faciliate faster growth for its imaging and printing product offerings in the Indian market, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has firmed up plans to position a differentiated range of products for price-sensitive customer segments in India, such as small and medium businesses (SMB), small office home office (SOHO) and potential customers in upcountry markets.

In an interview with Business Line here, Mr John Solomon, Hewlett-Packard's Vice-President (Supplies Business, Imaging & Printing Group) in charge of the Asia-Pacific region and Japan, said although price-sensitive, India was a market with great potential.

HP has decided to introduce a differentiated range of products in India, especially entry-level products.

These would be targeted at the SMB and SOHO segment.

Plans have also been firmed up to move to upcountry markets in India, where the market for HP's printers and cartridges could be developed exponentially. Mr Solomon said the focus of the range of the differentiated product offerings would be their affordability.

These could well encompass solutions for entry-level options, cartridges, multipacks — which would lower the cost per print — most valued customer programmes, interest-free tie-ups for bundled loan offerings, etc. "HP's focus will be on customer-valued solutions and we will aggressively pursue marketshare," he said.

Thrust on supplies biz

Extra focus would be laid on the supplies business in view of the fact that, out of HP's revenue of $27 billion that is generated by its printing business, $14 billion is accounted for by its supplies business.

A strong marketing thrust would be put on the aftermarket segment so that customers insist on buying cartridges from original cartridge manufacturers instead of sourcing their requirements from "remanufacturers or counterfeits."

Asked if HP's growth in marketshare in India was being hindered by cheaper options offered by competition, Mr Solomon said the company's focus was on print quality, print permanence, fade resistance and printing efficiency.

"The life cycle of the toner is not that important. How much of ink a toner uses up when operational is also not important. What is important is how many pages a toner can print," Mr Solomon said. As such, the customer would be educated on the complete picture of yield and costs, he indicated.

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