HP partners with Google to manufacture Chromebooks for Indian market

Global PC maker HP on Thursday announced a partnership with technology giant Google to manufacture Chromebooks in India, in line with the government's Make in India initiative.

The devices will be manufactured at HP's Flex Facility near Chennai, where the company has been producing its laptops and desktops since August 2020. The domestic production of HP Chromebooks will start from 2 October 2023 and will cater to the demand for affordable PCs in India, mainly from the education sector.

"This partnership will propel a joint vision to support the digital education ecosystem in India and help more students enhance their learning by providing affordable, safe, and high-quality computing devices to education authorities, schools, and institutions," the company said in a statement.

The devices manufactured in India will be sold solely in the Indian market and will not be exported to other countries.

Notably, the partnership comes at a time when global PC makers have been reeling from the government's recently introduced laptop import restrictions.

In an official notification on 3 August, the government announced that the imports of laptops, tablets and personal computers were restricted with immediate effect, in a bid to curb Chinese imports and push local manufacturing. After strong pushback, the deadline was extended to 1 November this year, with talks now surfacing about pushing it further to the next financial year.

HP is also among many other PC makers vying to expand its manufacturing footprint in India via the IT Hardware PLI 2.0 scheme.

"HP is committed to advancing digital equity, and we have been driving many initiatives to enable digital education across India. Manufacturing Chromebook laptops in India will allow Indian students to get easy access to affordable PCs. By further expanding our manufacturing operations, we continue to support the Make in India initiative of the government," said Vickram Bedi, Senior Director - Personal Systems, HP India.

Chromebooks are devices popular in K-12 education, demand for which has been steadily increasing. HP says that, globally, its Chromebooks are "helping over 50 million students and teachers."

Although the market share for HP Chromebooks is still in single digits in the Indian market, the company foresees an uptick in demand in the near future, spurred by the device's affordable pricing – its Chromebooks can go for as little as Rs 20,000, all the way to around Rs 55,000. The devices come equipped with Google's patented ChromeOS.

"At Google, we've been working closely with the local education ecosystem, supporting them in their transition to digital-first learning experiences through our products and teacher programmes. The local production of Chromebooks with HP marks an important step in our efforts to continue supporting the digital transformation of education in India. We hope this collaboration will help accelerate the adoption of technology in more schools so that every student and educator have access to the tools and skills to pursue their personal potential," said Bani Dhawan, Head of Education - South Asia, Google.

HP has significantly expanded its manufacturing operations in India since 2020 and, from December 2021, started manufacturing a wide range of laptops in India, including HP EliteBooks, HP ProBooks, and HP G8 series notebooks.

The company also expanded its portfolio of locally manufactured commercial desktops by adding various models of desktop mini towers (MT), mini desktops (DM), small form factor (SFF) desktops, and a range of All-in-One PCs. These products include both Intel and AMD processor options.