[Studio 91] Sudhir Goel from Acer India on how laptop brands are tackling the ‘new normal’

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Studio 91. This is a new series of conversations with brands, covering everything from details on new products to how they’re dealing with the changing competitive landscape, tackling the so-called ‘new normal’, shifting strategy to reach out to consumers and more. As the first in the series, we have a chat with Mr Sudhir Goel, Chief Business Officer, Acer India on how things have changed in the recent few months for the consumer laptop segment in India.

Goel makes some very interesting points, especially on how user behaviour has changed in recent months. The full conversation is embedded below, followed by a few key highlights from the discussion.

• Consumers have become more mindful of what they’re buying, mainly due to uncertainties in the marketplace.
• With people reluctant to shop in physical stores, there’s an increased propensity for brands to go digital
• Because of use cases like work from home and learn from home, more laptops are required in a single household
• Earlier, smartphones used to handle quite a few of these use cases, like entertainment for example. But since the number of hours spent in front of a screen have now gone up for many people, they’re preferring bigger screens.
• The number of first-time laptop buyers has gone up.
• Factors like portability and battery life are still important, despite the usage of laptops mostly being indoors.
• Remote places in the country are also witnessing increased demand for notebooks, but since there’s a perception of power supply being unreliable, good battery life is still essential.
• Catering to the online education segment and aiming to deliver technology to every household,, Acer has launched the Acer One and Extensa series of devices that are affordable and cater to value-conscious users.
• Acer is putting a lot of emphasis on social media communication to reach out to consumers.
• Acer’s marketing and loyalty strategies follow the concept of ‘respond, recover and reorient’.
• In the short to medium term, even after the pandemic situation is (hopefully) over, Acer expects that people will be spending long hours in front of screens. Till the time the PC penetration levels in India reach closer to the global penetration levels, Goel expects the consumer laptop segment to grow at a fast clip, and continue in the general direction of ‘one equipment per user’.

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