India bright spot for HP Inc in Asia-Pacific

For HP Inc, Asia-Pacific was the fastest growing market in its first quarter of fiscal 2020 and India is the bright spot owing to its rising millennial and aspirational young population, a top company executive has stressed.

HP Inc reported net revenue of $14.6 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2020 (November-January period) and free cash flow at $1.1 billion.

"Asia-Pacific at roughly 23 per cent of our global business in Q1 was the fastest growing market and India led the pack, riding on its growing young population which aims to make a true work-life balance via digital technology and next-gen devices," Vinay Awasthi, Managing Director, HP Inc., India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, told IANS.

Effective from November 1, 2019, HP announced a shift from its previous three-region model to 10 geographic markets to foster speed, flexibility and business efficiency.

As part of the new structure, India is now a separate Geographic Market (GM) with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

"This move would not only enable tighter alignment between our global businesses and priorities in India but also simplify our go-to-market model in the country," said Awasthi.

HP Inc sees massive opportunities across consumer, enterprise and small and medium businesses (SMBs) segments in India in 2020.

"In the last few months, consumer markets have shown more buoyancy than expected. We believe there is enough business for us in India. We need to just go out in the market and get it," said Awasthi.

"Our PC business has been growing in double digits and we expect the momentum to continue. We also see consolidation of PC market to continue," he added.

Education, entertainment and creation will be the key uses cases that will drive PC adoption by Gen Z and millennials.

"In our print business, we see learning as a core driver for home printing segment, while digitization, workflow transformation and ease of printing will drive the enterprise and SMB segment," Awasthi told IANS.

India's traditional PC market saw a six-year high with 11 million shipments of desktops, notebooks and workstations in 2019 -- an impressive 18.1 per cent year-over-year (YoY) growth, according to the International Data Corporation.

HP regained the top position in Q4 2019 (October-December period) as its shipments grew 8.6 per cent from the same time a year ago.

Riding on Ink Tank printer sales, HP Inc maintained its leadership position in the Hardcopy Peripherals market in India with a market share of 39.1 per cent in the calendar year 2019.

HP's Ink Tank shipment grew by 14 per cent (year-on-year) as a result of strong channel schemes and end-user promotions. HP's share in the copier segment grew by 29.4 per cent (YoY) owing to strong channel push, according to IDC data.

"India is a young nation. Our age pyramid is just right. The time is ripe to leverage our demographic dividend. No country has been able to modernise without using latest technology tools -- be it for education, entertainment or creation -- and India is no exception," Awasthi noted.