HP invests $150-M to strengthen its leadership in SME segment

Beijing, China – HP reinforced its leadership in the small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) segment as it announced yesterday a series of new products, solutions, online resources and services designed to simplify the entire technology ownership experience for SMEs, particularly in the Asia-Pacific Region.

The company also announced that it is investing over $150 million next year to enhance its Smart office portfolio of products, solutions and services to address the growing needs of SMEs across the region.

According to Dennis Mark, vice president of marketing, Personal Systems Group and SME, HP Asia Pacific and Japan, the SME segment is critical to HP with more than a third of the company’s revenues coming from this fast growing segment.

"HP is clearly leading the pack in the region’s fastest growing segment which is expected to enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 10.6 percent from 2005 to 2009, by providing a comprehensive IT portfolio that is relevant and purposely built for the SME market," said Gary Koch, Associate vice president, Asia Pacific.

HP is expecting to see its SME business in the Asia Pacific region excluding Japan growing at 1.5 times the industry IT spending of 11.3 percent through its next fiscal year starting November 2005.

"We are confident that we have the right strategy, the right solutions and most importantly the right partners in place to address the diverse needs of SMEs across the region," said Mark.

"Over the past fiscal year, HP invested over $150 million in the Asia Pacific to enhance our Smart Office portfolio of products, solutions and services. This includes investments in channel training, online resource enhancements, and marketing programs. We expect to continue a similar pace of investments into 2006."

During the press briefing, HP unveiled an extensive lineup of color printing and imaging solutions to deliver quality, cost efficient color printing capabilities to SME and further enhance their in-house marketing capabilities.

HP also announced its industry-specific initiative in collaboration with more than 900 global and regional business application software providers. This effort brings to market costumized solutions that help emerging enterprises in Asia Pacific improve their business performance.