Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Tuesday unveiled a new line-up of enterprise devices that it hopes will help the company to regain its global market dominance.
The United States computer manufacturer was bested by China’s Lenovo in worldwide personal computer (PC) sales in the last quarter; its market share declined 7.7 per cent to 16.4 per cent.
For the enterprise market, it has new offerings of laptops (including a detachable one) and printers.
“Lenovo is the market leader in the overall share of the PC market, but in the commercial space, HP is still the number one vendor,” said Enrique Lores, HP’s senior vice president and general manager for business PC, services and solutions. “The enterprise for commercial space area is where we have the advantage. This is one of the areas of focus.”
Although the PC market in the Middle East and Africa declined 18.7 per cent in the second quarter this year from the same period last year, Mr Lores views the region as one of the top growth areas for the company.
“We are seeing growth really impacted by the overall economic situation in countries. In the commercial space, we see growth in the Middle East in the top two or three areas of growth,” Mr Lores said.
Meanwhile, competition between the PC manufacturers continues to heat up, with Asus and Lenovo also announcing a new line-up of devices this week.
“The PC market has become extremely competitive, especially with certain vendors based in the Far East gaining market share rapidly,” said Fouad Charakla, a research manager at the technology market research firm International Data Corporation.
“Hence it will strongly depend on HP’s ability to create a strong value-for-money proposition. Their pricing and channel strategy will be a key factor.”
The PC and printing solutions business accounts for about 50 per cent of HP’s overall revenues.
The company is increasingly branching out to new forms of PCs, including tablets and hybrid laptops. Mr Lores also hinted that HP would introduce its own smartphone in due time.
“We have said that we need to cover the smartphone gap because smartphones are computers and we want to play a full role in the computer business,” he said.
“We are working on it, but we haven’t said when [we will launch it].”
thamid@thenational.ae
