Intel’s price cuts have little impact

Resellers say that the recent price cuts by Intel are not likely to bring

down PC prices in the Indian market in the near future. This is mainly because

there is low demand for models with over 2.2 GHz speed.

Worldwide, analysts are predicting a fall in PC prices because of Intel’s

recent price-cut of up to 53 percent on some of its high-end processors. Price

cuts between 10 to 53 percent were effected on Pentium 4, Xeon and mobile

processors with speeds above 2.2 GHz.

According to market sources, these models may be popular in the US, but here

in India, Intel has been pushing the 1.6 GHz and 1.7 GHz Pentium models. The

price drop for higher speed models will not affect local resellers because there

still exists a price gap of 40 percent between 1.7 GHz model and the 2.2 GHz

model.

"The announcement of price cuts for older technologies are a regular

move of Intel whenever a newer technology is released," says Amar Babu,

GM-Channels, South Asia, Intel. At the same time, Amar denied of any major price

cut on models that are doing well in the Indian market.

Resellers also agree that they have not seen any official price cut in the

fast moving models like the Pentium 4 1.6 GHz and 1.7 GHz processors.

On an average the price drop could be just about 15 percent over a period of

three to four months. This, according to market analysts, is a normal price

fluctuation common with the demand and supply pattern. In the JFM quarter, the

price was more or less stable at Rs 9,500 for 1.6 GHz model. At present this

model is selling at about Rs 8,200.

NELSON JOHNY