Haier may bring laptops, USB drives into Indian market

Haier, which entered the Indian market last year with its colour televisions and refrigerators, may enter the laptop market "later this year," a senior executive of Haier India, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese consumer electronics maker, said here on Friday.

"We haven't finalised anything. We sell these products, laptops and USB drives, in the international market so it is likely that if we decide to bring in IT products into India, those will be the ones," said Pranay Dhabhai, a director of Haier Appliances India, at the company's roadshow here to promote cellular phone models it has launched for the Indian market.

"There are some unique features to the products, for instance, you can swivel the screen 180 degrees, or we have a USB drive that is on a wristwatch."

Introduction of the products will mean setting up a separate distribution chain for it "likely in the second half this year," Dhabhai said.The Indian industry is forecasting an over 50 per cent growth in laptop sales this year on top of sales doubling for two years in a row.

International Data Corp., a US based market research company, reports 195,000 laptops sold in 2004, more than twice the 84,000 sold in 2003. It forecasts laptop sales this calendar year will touch 315,000, up 61.5 per cent over last year, and 419,000 in 2006, up 33 per cent on this year.

Haier India has been increasing the number of products it sells in the country from early last year, when it launched its colour televisions and refrigerators in North India, to include washing machines, air conditioners, dish washers and microwave ovens. Worldwide, Haier even sells modular kitchens to go with its products.

"We really went all-India from July last year. On the revenues front, we aim to end the year till June 2005 with Rs 300 crore. This does not include sales of mobile phones."

The company thought its phones stood a good chance of finding buyers in the Indian market. In the year till December 2005, "we aim to sell five lakh handsets," he said.