More people prefer branded computers

With a 20 percent increase in the sales of branded computers this year, global leader Hewlett Packard along with its partner Ng Khai Development Corporation, sees an emerging trend that consumers are beginning to see the difference between buying branded products against the clones.

Ng Khai Development Corp. chief executive officer and President Wilson Ng expressed his optimism in a press briefing held recently that the emerging trend observed in the PC market will continue to raise the PC penetration rate in the country.

“Philippines, particularly Cebu market, has come to realize the difference between a low-cost PC and a branded one since more and more customers are buying better units because it’s more reliable and it has more features,” expressed Ng.

As technology becomes advanced, the computer’s role in a man’s life has become more personal.

“PCs are growing faster in the world market. As people see technology playing the bigger part of their lives, they start to look for better technology and we see the same trend in developing markets like the Philippines that’s why we are bullish with the market here in the Philippines” Ng shared.

With only 4% PC penetration in the Philippines and having a relative cost of 43.7% from the global market, HP’s Vice President for South East Asia and Taiwan See Chin-Teik believes that making PC prices as competitive as possible can help bring in more customers.

“Average selling price cost had to do with penetration, as prices continue to go down the growth of the PC market will go up,” he said.

However, See was quick to point out that reducing PC pricing cost is not the only the way for them to strengthen the market but to also increase innovation and efficiency which HP had incorporated in their penetration strategy.

“Efficiency makes prices as competitive as possible and we will continue to find more ways to bring in more customers. But we won’t focus on just the pricing cost but also with the offered feature,” said See.

 See Chin-Teik also shared in an interview with The Freeman his observation of the Philippine PC market in terms of white book penetration saying that, “it is quite unusual that 80% sales is shared by the white book market whereas only less than 50% goes to other markets like branded computer manufacturers, distributors and resellers.”

The white market is composed of private computer assemblers and distributors that install unlicensed software in their units.

With the company’s recent expansion here in Cebu, HP is optimistic to see that PCs will come to also penetrate the country’s market like how mobile phones have done so in the past. “It’s very personal. Without a PC, you feel very handicapped. Computers are no longer a commodity but a tool for daily life and it is part of one’s productive lifework,” stressed See Chin-Teik.