HP looks to tap growing millennials in India for gaming PCs

Increasing demand among Indians within the age of 35 has prompted the company

Personal computer and printer maker HP wants to tap the increasing millennial population in India to boost growth in the newly introduced gaming PC segment. The American computer maker has focused on enterprise, government organisations and consumer segments so far.

Rajiv Srivastava, managing director, HP Inc says the increasing demand for quality gaming devices among Indians within the age of 35 has prompted the company to fill the gap in the gaming segment.

"Historically, games did not gain a foothold in India due to the lack of access to gaming consoles and PCs, and the low social acceptance of this entertainment medium. This is all changing now as the Indian games industry is at the cusp of a major transformation," said Srivastava

Personal computers and desktops under the gaming series called Omen is priced between nearly Rs 80000 and Rs 1,40,000 for the Indian market and the 17-inch model will come with virtual reality gaming option. The market for gaming PCs in India is pegged at Rs 3,000 crore and growing at nearly 15 per cent annually.

"We play across different segments of enterprise, governments, small and medium business and consumer markets. We pretty much offer everything, but we felt we had a gap in the gaming segment. No better time than this time as Indian gaming market is maturing with a huge millennial population," said Srivastava.

Technology Researcher Gartner, however, says there has been a decline in PC shipments across the world, including Asia Pacific and in India since 2012. A Gartner report on January 12 also said growth should come from segments like gaming, but it would take time to offset the decline in overall PC sales.

The Asia Pacific PC market shipments of 24.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2016, a 3.9 per cent drop as against year-ago period and demonetisation in India was one of the two major reasons behind weaker-than-expected consumer PC demand, points out the report.

Srivastava says sales of HP, which owns 28.8 per cent share of the PC market in India, have not been affected by demonetisation except for some delay in purchasing decisions in November last year. "Our view is demonetisation started digitisation in the country, it had link with technology adoption. In our scheme of things, it has created a path for digitisation," he said.