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PC and printer manufacturer HP has set its eyes on 3D printing business, a relatively new area for the company. Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director of HP India, saidthe utility of 3D printing is evolving— from just a prototype to printing of actual parts that can go into real machines.
“3D printing removes the barriers on design. Earlier, designs were constrained because of manufacturing. You could only produce parts in a certain fashion. 3D printing allows you to produce a complicated part,” Sumeer Chandra told BusinessLine .
“You remove weight, and reduce material consumption. You reduce transportation costs, storage costs, and avoid wastages. Why, you can print spare parts on demand,” he said.
He pegs the global market for 3D at $18 billion, including services. The company is in talks with about 200 companies, educational institutions and government institutions to sell 3D printers.
“We do it ourselves. Almost 50 per cent of the plastic parts that are in our 3D printers are produced by 3D printers,” he asserted. “What HP is trying to do is transform manufacturing with 3D printing. We are bringing 3D printing technology that is more geared towards mainstream production,” he said. The firm will establish a 3D printing unit at the Andhra Pradesh Medtech Zone to support the companies there. “It will do 3D conceptualisation, design, scanning and printing. It will provide end-to-end services to medical technology companies in the zone,” he said.
Centre of Excellence
The company is also in talks with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB) to set up a Centre of Excellence to help the stakeholders, including the small and medium businesses.
He, however, did not indicate any timeline to set up the CoE. In India, we launched the 3D printer earlier this year and so far we have signed three partners— one each in Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai., he said.
PC business
Contrary to popular perception that proliferation of mobile devices could impact the PC business, Sumeer Chandra said that there’s a huge potential for PC business in the country especially in the context of digitisation initiatives. Penetration of PC is less than 15 per cent.
On the printing side again HP is a market leader, both in inkjet and laserjet, , he said. Quoting third party estimates, he said the company ranked first both in the PC and printer business.
“In PCs, we saw almost 17 per cent growth last year as per IDC with a share of 28.6 per cent of the market,” he said.
For HP, consumer business contributed about 40 per cent, with the remaining coming from government, small and medium businesses and enterprises.
“India is $2.6 trillion economy and is predicted to be $5 trillion in another six-seven years. Business-to-consumer technology is playing a big role in that growth and as a premier PC and printer provider, we see a big role for the adoption of these endpoint devices,” he said.
He added, “We are doing a lot of work in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana with security and surveillance, education, citizen services. Digitisation is a big area of focus for us. We are helping in digitisation of land records, High Court documents. .”
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