MUMBAI, MARCH 8: Multinational PC vendor Hewlett Packard (HP) confirmed there would be no drop in computer prices following the customs duty concessions announced in the budget, on Tuesday. Announcing the launch of a new range of home PCs equipped with CD-Writer and MP3 player, HP business development manager Kaushik Bellani said the finance minister had negated any cost benefit from the customs duty cut by imposing special additional duty (SAD) of 4 per cent on traders. "The effective duty is still 35 per cent, so I don't forsee any drop in PC prices," said Bellani. However, he said PC penetration in the country would increase because of drivers like the internet, as projected by research firm International Data Corporation. HP is targeting a growth of 100 per cent in the home PC segment for the calendar year 2000 - from 10,000 units in 1999 to 20,000 units. HP, a late entrant in the home PC market, launched its Pavilion range in January 1998 with nine retailers. However, by 1999 end, it had the fourth largest market share in the home PC market with 120 retailers. The largest market share of 6.6 per cent was with HCL followed by Zenith and Compaq. The company plans to leverage the benefits given in the budget for local manufacturing by starting assembly of home PCs at its plant in Bangalore. So far, the plant has been used only for its workstations. By importing the components and assembling them here, the company will be able to cut costs marginally, Bellani said. The year-old plant has a capacity of 170 units per day. All models in the Pavilion home PC range will ship with the MP3 player, MusicMatch Jukebox, from now. The software allows playing, recording and reorganising of songs in MP3 format. The Pavilion 6605, powered by AMD K6-2 500 Mhz processor, is priced at Rs 52,999 (taxes extra) and comes with a free deskjet printer. The Pavilion 8601, powered by the Pentium III 500 Mhz processor, is priced at Rs 60,999.
