ACi, a laptop specialist brand from the U.K., on Wednesday, unveiled the lowest-priced and fully-functional laptop computer for the Indian market.
The ACi Icon 1100 is a fully-functional high resolution 10.2-inch screen laptop computer priced at Rs.4,999.
ACi is represented in India by Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd., which will market the products here and is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Speaking to The Hindu , Hirji Patel, Chairman, Allied Computers International (Asia), said, “The ACi ICON 1100 is the lowest-priced fully-functional laptop in India. It is Windows-compatible with an expandable memory up to 1 GB.”
The low-priced product is among a range of seven products that the company unveiled on Wednesday and the other products are mid-to-high-end laptops.
On the company’s ability to sell the product at such a low cost, Mr. Patel said, “as is the case with most of these products across the globe, component sourcing as well as manufacturing is done from the Far East, and our margins are very thin.”
Mr. Patel said the company expected to sell 2 lakh units of the ACi Icon in a year.
“That is a conservative estimate, and we may sell that many this calendar year itself. We are planning to launch the ‘model B’ of the base model ACi Icon here in the next two or three months,” Mr. Patel said.
The company has an existing dealership of 200 . “In the next two months, we want to add around 500 more dealerships across India,” he said.
Point out that some state governments were offering cheap, functional laptops for students, Mr. Patel said his company was already in talks with “a couple of state governments.” A U.K.-based non-resident Indian, Mr. Patel established the ACi brand there in 1992 and ACi introduced its first custom-designed ACi NotePro in India in 1993. He has since introduced several laptops in India, usually at a steep discount to competing products.
