More the flux, fiercer the fight

LAUNCH: Does Fujitsu stand a fighting chance in the fierce arena of personal computers?

How do you enter a market where you have no history and no established customer relationships, just a whole lot of competitors? Fight it out. Well, at least that's the spirit with which Fujitsu India is approaching its business in the country.

The market in question is known for its dynamism "" personal computers (PCs) "" and Fujitsu is a late entrant to an arena that already has 14 fierce combatants. In the normal course of affairs, Fujitsu should just pack up and go home.

But wait. Globally, the PC market is undergoing another bout of action, with the Dell-Intel-Windows triad no longer considered quite so unassailable (Dell, under attack, is trying AMD chips, while Windows wards off a search googly in software). Such flux tends to make space for exciting new players.

But Fujitsu is no startup, and some would say not even exciting. It is a Japanese behemoth, with $44 billion in sedate sales across 60 countries. In India, it's been around since 1990, doing ho-hum turnkey telecom projects, mostly.

Worldwide, PCs account for a quarter of its revenues, and in India, it now wants to skim PC demand in the top 14 cities in year one of operations. It's an upper-end thrust, with a desktop PC priced in the Rs 40,000 region, and a laptop at least Rs 10,000 more (likewise, tablet PCs).

The target consumer? "Essentially the second-time buyer who knows exactly what he/she wants, and price is not necessarily a constraint," says Ramanjeet Singh, head, PC division, Fujitsu India.

Gunning for both the enterprise and consumer segments, Singh is conscious of Fujitsu's lack of brand credentials. But confident all the same.

Market maturity would work in Fujitsu's favour, he reckons: "The notebook business is on a spectacular run in India. Here, most users have used a PC before, and they appreciate the difference in design and quality."

The brand would still need to reach out to people, he concedes. "We would not have any celebrity endorsing our products "" instead, Fujitsu's employees would feature in our commercials."

Retail presence would drive brand recognition too, a must in this early stage. A concept store has opened doors already in Chandigarh, a city often used by global players as a test centre for upper-end offerings. The four metros are next.

Fujitsu is especially bullish on notebook sales. The industry body MAIT has reported robust notebook sales in 2005-06, a year in which overall PC sales edged past the 4.4-million-units mark.