KOLKATA: Acer, the world’s second largest PC maker, plans to focus on its Gateway brand in the Indian market to compete in the premium segment dominated by Hewlett-Packard and Sony Vaio.
While Acer India till lately was selling the Gateway range through Tata Group’s electronics retail chain Croma, it now plans to sell the product through its own pan-India distribution network and multi-brand retail chains.
The company expects the Gateway brand will contribute around 15% to its over-all PC sales in a year.
The company also plans to soon launch 8-10 models in the Gateway range, which will be positioned in the all-day computing segment. Acer believes this strategy will help it to reach the second spot in the Indian PC market by this year, which is currently enjoyed by Dell.
“Gateway has been a strong brand in the US where it contributes 50% to sales and in other developed markets like Japan, Singapore and Australia the contribution is around 30-35%. We now want to grow the brand at a similar pace in India,” Acer India chief marketing officer S Rajendran said.
Incidentally, the Gateway brand was launched in India through the Croma retail chain a year back. The company used to sell some 650-700 units a month.
It now plans to sell it through the 270-odd Acer brand stores and top 70 multi-brand PC stores. “The Gateway range will have a 3% price premium over the Acer range and 5-8% less than a Hewlett-Packard or Vaio. The brand will appeal to the style conscious consumers,” said Mr Rajendran.