Acer to rework India phone strategy

Acer, the Taiwanese electronics products firm, is reworking its phone strategy for India. The firm sells a few smartphone models in the Indian market.

“We are having a fresh look at our phone strategy for the country. We are working on a strategy on the positioning of phones,” Chandrahas Panigrahi, Senior Director (Consumer Business) of Acer India (Private) Ltd, told BusinessLine .

He was in the city to launch the company’s third exclusive store, and tenth in Telangana, selling PCs and laptops. “The phone strategy would look at the ‘sweet spots’ in pricing while positioning the smartphones,” he said. The firm, which has a market share of 15 per cent in the PC market in the country with 9 million pieces a year, is in the process of targeting first-time users. “PC penetration is very low in the country at just 10 per cent. It is a big opportunity for us to tap the market. We are offering attractive price points and EMIs to target this segment,” he said.

He said the penetration of smartphones would help the PC market grow as it initiated people to the web, prompting them to seek better and bigger devices. “At the cost of two average smart phones (that people buy every two-three years), you will get a robust PC,” he said.

On expansion plans, he said the company is going to open 25 more exclusive retail outlets by the year-end, taking the total to 125. “The number will double to 250 next year,” he said.

The company will bring Acer Aspire Swift 7, claimed to be the world’s thinnest laptop, to India next month. “We will also bring Predator, the 21-inch curved screen laptop, by the year end,” he said. The company, which launched the two products at the IFA expo in Berlin recently, is yet to decide on price tags for the Indian market.

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