Prices increased again

Delhi
: While
the festival season might imbibe you with good cheer the news on the price
front is not so great. In view of the dollar appreciation coupled with rise in
price of some components, few major consumer electronics makers, particularly
those of PCs, digital cameras, laptops and photocopying machines will be
hiking the prices of their products this October. This is the second time that
the prices of IT products have witnessed a hike this year year. Prior to this,
many vendors including, HP, Intex, Logitech etc had hiked the prices of their
products in the month of January, owing to CBEC's decision to implement
excise based MRP on IT products.

In
the PC segment, HP has already hiked the prices to the tune of 10 percent,
while Dell has resolved to hike it anywhere between 5-10 percent. HCL however,
has already revised the prices and increased it by about four percent; Intex
is hiking the prices of desktop PCs, monitors and peripheral products by three
to four percent whereas for the laptops the price hike is slightly higher at
about seven to eight percent.

Canon
has hiked the prices of their printer products in the range of 8-10 percent
whereas the price rise for its laser compatible products will be around five
percent. AOC has hiked the prices by six to eight percent.

Going
against the trend in the segment Sony, has resolved to maintain the prices for
its product even as their competitors are hiking it.

LG
has also planned to hike the prices across different product segments and will
do the same in a phased manner. When contacted, R Manikandan, GM-Sales and
Marketing, IT Products mentioned, "Since the dollar price now stands at Rs
47 it will bring about an increase in the prices of our products in the range
of six to seven percent. However, we will hike the prices in a phased manner
and it will be at about 2.5 percent to start with. While the hike in the LCD
monitors will be less, ODD will witness major price changes."

Commenting
about the latest round of hike in prices Sameer Garde, Country GM for Dell
India,

Alok
Bhardwaj, Senior VP, Canon India shared that the hike is mostly going to
affect the vendors.

HP
is also likely to increase the prices across its product range by around 10
percent. The primary reason for this hike is dollar appreciation coupled with
price hike for some components. "We will be increasing the prices soon and
the hike will be extended to the entire product range of HP PSG India,"
said Ravi Swaminathan, President-Personal Systems Group, HP India.

However,
channel partners were of the view that the hike would not affect them a lot
since the customers as it is are aware of rise in exchange rates. K Gopinath,
a channel partner based in Chennai and CEO of Modern Computers, opined,
"The price hike won't affect the channel or retail market, as the cash
flow is still there. Customers understand that the price hike is due to the
appreciation of dollar rate and all of a sudden the IT budgets cannot be axed
and the business will keep going."

For
complete report, read DQ Channels Oct 15-31 issue.