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| Edited By: Sreejiraj Eluvangal |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 02:21 AM IST
Microstar International (MSI), one third of the Taiwanese triumvirate involving Acer and Asus credited with creating the 'netbook revolution', has finally decided India is too big a market to ignore.
The company, whose 'Wind' netbooks are one of the best-selling netbook brands in most parts of the World, has attacked the Indian market with not just Atom-based netbooks, but also two based on AMD chips.
The new MSI line-up, unveiled on Tuesday, includes four netbooks starting at Rs19,000 and ten regular notebooks, starting at Rs38,000.
Taking advantage of the non-Intel chips on two of its netbooks, the company has beefed up the specifications with high-definition displays. Intel forbids vendors from installing high definition displays on its netbooks, to ensure that the netbook market does not cannibalise its regular notebook sales.
MSI is the second vendor to bypass the restriction by moving to a non-Intel chip for its netbooks. Samsung too had opted for a Via chip for bringing out its NC20 laptop last year.
MSI, Acer and Asus had latched onto the netbook bandwagon in 2008 partly because they were largely motherboard and component vendors and could experiment by making smaller formfactors. They also did not risk eating into their notebook sales since they did not have much presence in the market, except for Acer.
The three have continued to innovate on the product front, bringing out touchscreen netbooks, all-in-one 'kitchen' screens, tablets etc.. While Acer soon dominated the market, MSI's netbooks too have won much praise from the reviewers.
"We are targeting sales of around 60,000 to 80,000 units in India in 2010," said Frank Hsu of MSI. The company sold around 12,000-14,000 units in India last year, nearly half of them being netbooks, he added.
The company has already tied up with the three major electronics retailers, Reliance Digital, Future Group and Croma and will add four exclusive company showrooms.
