Indian IT industry is one of the largest industries in the world and catering to the biggest consumer market globally. In the past few years, the trend of buying gaming laptops has increased among people due to its availability and affordability in Indian market. PC market has seen massive growth and continuing to grow further. Brands are utilizing the existing opportunities to boost their overall market share. ASUS, one of the key market players, offering powerful and budget friendly laptops to customers across India. In a recent conversation with Arnold Su, PC & ROG Head at Asus India, we got to know about their overall performance so far this year, achievements, future investments and growth roadmaps for India. Find below the excerpts:
DT: How do you see current market position for ASUS in India?
Mr. Arnold: When we speak of the overall laptop space, ASUS enjoys a 7% market share and aims to increase it to 10% by the end of this year. The same would take us a notch higher to the fourth position in the Indian laptop market. When we particularly talk about the gaming laptop space, we are no. 1 in the gaming segment with 30% market share.
DT: How do you see overall growth of gaming laptops in India? What are your efforts in catering to these existing opportunities?
Mr. Arnold: The popularity of gaming laptops has only increased in the nation, especially in the past 18 months. At present, major players in the segment are vying to gain customer attention and loyalty, either by slashing prices or upgrading the available features and performance levels. At ASUS India, we enjoy a good rapport and trust of the customers. Besides, while our different offerings would fit the different pocket sizes, we have always made it a point to innovate. Whether it is bringing the ScreenPad of the future to India, or the thermal cooling technology, RangeBoost Technology to optimize Wi-Fi connectivity or the Overstoke Keyboard technology to provide a dynamic keyboard experience to users, we have constantly innovated to strike the right chord with passionate gamers in India.
DT: What are your commitments to ensure best-in-class service support for your customers?
Mr. Arnold: We are present across India with our distribution network, ASUS exclusive stores and ROG stores. These stores are present across the metropolis, tier 2 segment and beyond. While we shall continue to add more stores, we maintain last-mile connect with our customers through the same. Furthermore, our customer support team operates round-the-clock to extend the best-in-class services and support to our customers.
DT: What are your strategies to eliminate barriers (competitors & unfavorable market conditions) to further strengthen your growth?
Mr. Arnold: The way we operate, i.e. by constant innovation and expansion, we endeavor to create uncontested spaces in the market. The innovations introduced by ASUS, especially in the range of gaming laptops, are truly unrivalled and give us the edge against our competitors.
DT: Please brief about your current channel ecosystem. How do you support them to boost ASUS reach across all major market?
Mr. Arnold: At present, we are well supported by 100 exclusive partner stores and 6,000 distributors who sell ASUS laptops across the country.
DT: What is your target/goal for ASUS in India by end of this year?
Mr. Arnold: By the end of 2019, we will add 100 more exclusive stores, whilst also growing our distributors to 10,000 during the same period. Furthermore, we will also add 7 new ROG (Republic of Gaming) stores to take the total number of such stores to 10 by the end of 2019.
DT: What are your future plans for India?
Mr. Arnold: In the near future, we shall focus on increasing the outreach of ASUS in India, while also looking at capturing a bigger market share.
