Wipro Ignores Zenith, Prices Its Line Higher

The PC price war has taken another turn with the Wipro Infotech group preferring not to provide a counter to the PC priced at Rs 33,500 from Zenith Computers.

Wipro, which launched its Wipro Super Genius brand here yesterday, has kept the models starting price at Rs 40,000, which is Rs 6,500 more than the Zenith PC tag.

And by launching its own brand of PCs, Wipro Infotech group has also thrown a challenge to Acer of Taiwan with whom it has a joint venture in India for manufacturing Wipro Acer PCs.

Wipro plans to capture the 'Indian brand' PC market, while Acer will now onwards remain a 'MNC PC' in the market.

 

"We haven't compromised on quality," said Ashok Soota, group president, Wipro Infotech group, in an indirect reference to Zenith's challenge of low-priced PCs. Wipro said its SuperGenius PCs were installed with only 'genuine and quality components'. "We offer value for money," Soota said.

"Our PCs will not be a 'price proposition'," he said, adding, Wipro has cut down its overhead costs and other expenses instead of compromising on quality.

The company claimed that it was the first product to role out under the new corporate identity of Wipro.

According to Suresh Vaswani, all critical components like motherboards and power supply are sourced from technology partners that are ISO-9001 companies with large R&D and manufacturing investments to ensure quality.

To protect against erratic power supply, the 150w power supply of Wipro SuperGenius can operate at more than 200w capacity.

Meanwhile, Zenith Computers Ltd. yesterday announced in New Delhi that it has sold over 7,000 home PCs since their launch on April 6, 1998 when it was touted as the cheapest branded product in the Indian market.

"Zenith is committed to delivering home PCs, which are engineered with the 100% the same components as any leading international brand such as Compaq, IBM, but at prices affordable to the Indian consumer," an official statement from Zenith, quoting Raj Saraf, CMD, Zenith Computers Ltd, said.