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After making a splash in the Indian TV market, French consumer electronics brand Thomson is geared up to launch a series of laptops across price points in the domestic market in the first quarter of 2024, a top company executive said on Wednesday, as the government pushes for the PLI 2.0 for IT hardware scheme.

The move, said Sebastien Crombez, trademark licensing trade and marketing manager, Technicolor SA Thomson France, is to let Indian users experience feature-rich, powerful laptops that will be launched in the country after a rigorous testing phase at homegrown manufacturer Super Plastronics Pvt. Ltd (SPPL), an exclusive brand licensee of Thomson in the country.

“After the success of our exhaustive range of TVs and other product categories in India, we are very bullish on foraying into the Indian laptop market which has ample room to grow. I see a very positive government policy in place for companies to come and manufacture here. France and India have very good relationship and we have a lot of things in common. Bringing our laptop range to India is a natural expansion for us to sever the customers,” Crombez told IANS.

The PLI 2.0 scheme encompasses IT hardware items including laptops, tablets, all-in-one PCs, servers, and ultra-small form factor devices, aligning with the trajectory of achieving $25 billion in IT hardware production with exports projected between $12-17 billion by 2025-26. 

More than 45 companies have submitted applications under PLI Hardware 2.0 and "many of them are already in the process of setting up their plants," Union IT and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told IANS last month.

According to Avneet Singh Marwah, CEO, SPPL, they have been working towards launching Thomson laptops for the more than a year, closely studying category trends, consumer and market behaviour in the country.

“We will launch best Thomson laptops in the country in the Q1 of 2024 that have already been tried and tested in other countries. The devices will come in entry-level, mid-price level and premium segments to cater to a large pool of customers,” Marwah told IANS. 

The India traditional PC market, inclusive of desktops, notebooks, and workstations, continued to struggle, as it shipped 3.2 million units in the second quarter this year. 

Despite growing by 5.9 per cent quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), it declined by 15.3 per cent year-over-year (YOY) in the April-June quarter, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC).

“There is a lot of scope in the domestic laptop market after Chinese devices failed to woo the consumers. We are not leaving anything behind and will be very aggressive with the Thomson range of devices,” Marwah emphasised.