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In just a year, HP India has gained 25 per cent market share in gaming devices, and the company hopes to do more in the coming years with millennials as its target customers.
“We have taken a quarter of the market (25 per cent market share) and we are one of the top brands in gaming already. We are trying to reinvent the gaming experience and offering a new way of play embedded in the product – like the wearable backpack,” Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, Personal Systems, HP Inc. India, told BusinessLine in an interview.
He said the gaming portfolio is a multi-year kind of a journey and not just ‘right here right now’ kind of revenue making segment for the company.
“Our bigger concern is to widen the portfolio and engage more with the gamers. Numbers will come as a consequence. Obviously, if we get to No. 1 position that will be great…so that’s more of a consequence for us,” he said.
HP entered the gaming segment with the launch of ‘Omen’ gaming portfolio. The company has constantly been beefing up its gaming portfolio and introduced several Omen notebooks, desktops and accessories targeted at entry and mid-level gamers.
According to industry reports, Dell is the No. 1 company in gaming devices with around 42 per cent market share, followed by HP at around 26 per cent market share and Lenovo at around 11 per cent, as of January this year. However, in the $800 and above category, HP had a 40 per cent share compared to Dell’s over 28 per cent.
“The market has grown a lot over the last couple of years. India is getting younger by the day and there are more youth-oriented products now. This is the trend we are seeing in the personal computer industry. Consumers of technology are getting younger,” Bedi said.
He said games are not offline anymore and there is more indulgence online too. The gamers now are expecting gaming in any kind of environment or on the move.
Slew of products
That is why the company launched eight new products in the gaming portfolio priced between ₹2,199 and ₹4.50 lakh. The products include Omen X compact desktop with VR backpack with price starting at ₹2,94,988; the Omen X desktop starting at ₹4,49,999; the Omen X notebook starting at ₹2,10,990; the HP Windows MR headset starting at ₹51,187; the Omen headset 800 at ₹6,999; the Omen Mouse 600 at ₹4,999; Omen Steel series gaming keyboard priced at ₹9,999; and Omen Steel series mouse pad priced at ₹2,199.
According to a CII report last year, India’s gaming industry was valued at $543.08 million in 2016 and is projected to cross $800 million by 2022. As per industry estimates, the overall PC gaming market in India is around ₹600-700 crore right now, and is growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 30-40 per cent.
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