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The company extended its range of notebooks with the new Non-Stop Series laptops, besides launching four sleek and ultra-portable desktop PCs under the HCL Beanstalk 2007 collection. The agency operations complemented the products: Toshiba laptops (Tecra, Satellite, Portege, Qosmio), Nokia smart phones (dwindling revenues as Nokia started distributing on its own), Konica Minolta laser printers, Kodak scannersthe list was impressive.

In personal/home electronics, HCLI entered into national distribution pacts with Casio (for digicams) and Apple (for iPods). Another tie-up was with Dish TV, whereby the latter leveraged HCLs distribution and services support for DTH. To expand the retail reach, HCLI added eight more Digilife Stores across the country, taking the total to 29.

The digital lifestyle focus paid off too, as the company retained its position as the leading desktop PC vendor, and was one of the top players in laptops. However, the sub-10k PC brouhaha started the year before fizzled out, as the company failed to find a significant number of takers. To manage the growing demand for its PCs/notebooks, HCLI intended to enhance overall production capacity to 2 mn PCs per annum and, accordingly, set up manufacturing operations in Uttarakhand to supplement its existing Pondicherry facility.

The digital lifestyle thrust "unwittingly" has resulted in its relative positioning as an integrator weakening in the marketplace, with smaller, focused players catching up. The one silver lining, in this area, was a Rs 591 crore order from BSNL. Notwithstanding, the CVC reservations, HCLI bagged the contract and is currently in the final phase of deployment. DQ

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