After five years, Dell wrests HP's PC crown

This may well mark the end of an era in the Indian personal computer or PC market.

After reigning supreme for five years, Hewlett-Packard (HP), the world’s largest personal computer maker, has surrendered its crown as India’s largest PC brand to rival Dell, a company founded 25 years ago with an investment of $1,000.

HP has seen its market leadership erode, especially in price-sensitive markets, as Taiwanese vendor Acer and direct-to-home giant Dell gnawed away at the ‘premium’ image HP had built up over the years with their value-for-money pitch.

“Dell sold around 3.53 lakh PCs in the June quarter, compared with 3.31 by HP,” said a source close to Dell, quoting market research firm Gartner’s quarterly review.

A Gartner spokespersonn said the firm will shortly make an announcement and did not give further details.

Just a year ago, HP was ahead of Dell by 1.5 lakh units in annual sales.

The setback has come exactly two years after HP brought back its former customer systems head, Neelam Dhawan, from Microsoft to head its India division.

Dhawan had also brought in her former Microsoft colleague Rajiv Srivastava four months ago.

This was shortly after Gartner’s rival IDC India announced HP has lost the notebook crown to Dell in India.

Dell, which credited its early growth to its unique direct-to-home selling model, changed its strategy in India two years ago.

Realising that selling over brochures and phones would not work in a low-penetration country like India, the company assumed the traditional model of selling through shops and dealers.

Dell founder Michael Dell, too announced that the company was running at double the revenues during the first quarter this year compared to a year ago, giving a glimpse of the success of the combined strategy. Unlike HP, which defended its ‘premium’ image, Dell sold at prices comparable to those of Taiwanese competitor Acer.

Soon, HP was left as one of the few ‘premium’ brands after others like Sony and Toshiba abandoned the high-ground and sought to conquer the Indian market with cut-throat pricing.

According to the source, Dell had a market share of 14.3% in the overall PC market last quarter, followed by HP with 13.4% and Acer with 11%. Dell had a share of 27% in notebooks, selling around 2.35 lakh units the three months, compared with 1.79 lakh notebooks sold by HP.