HP bets on gaming experience zones to woo Indian gamers

PC maker HP Friday said it has set up gaming experience zones in more than 100 of its HP World outlets as it looks to woo the growing gamers' community in the country.

The company has seen a strong growth in the gaming segment in India.

It launched the world's first dual-screen gaming laptop, Omen X 2S, on Friday in India for about Rs 2.09 lakh.

"We have added gaming experience zone in 100-plus HP Worlds. These are dedicated gaming experience zones, where before you go and buy a gaming device, you can play and experience it," Vickram Bedi, Senior Director, Personal Systems Business at HP Inc India told PTI.

He added that the company has also expanded its portfolio of gaming devices across price points to cater to gamers in the country.

HP has a network of over 600 HP Worlds across 300 cities in India.

With e-sports becoming more mainstream in India, the growth of gaming category has gained further momentum, Bedi said.

"Gaming is also becoming a spectator sport where you will find a lot of people just watching others game. So, I think the category is becoming very evolved... the average selling prices have grown but as the marketplace gets more customers, the price points will start improving (becoming more affordable)," he said.

According to GfK data, HP nearly doubled its sales of gaming devices from January last year to January 2019. In April this year, HP had 40.2 per cent market share in the gaming PCs segment.

Talking about Omen X 2S, Bedi said the product has been designed based on insights and feedback from its Omen gaming communities.

The dual-screen will allow players to message friends on WhatsApp, browse in Spotify, watch Twitch, YouTube, and serve as a hub for Omen Command Centre software. It also allows gamers to copy the map portion of a racing game to the second screen.

The company, which competes against the likes of Dell and Asus in the gaming category, has also unveiled HP Omen 15 laptop starting at Rs 1.24 lakh and HP Pavilion Gaming 15 laptop for Rs 70,990 onwards.