Intels India story was about mobility. As laptop sales grew to 25% of all PCs, and Intel earned $160 per laptopnearly double that for desktopshigher margins made up for modest top line growth. Desktop growth, of course, was low, in line with the market.

Two things worked for Intel. The strong 45 nm product line, the Core 2 Duo products, gave Intel clear product superiority after a long time. The second was AMDs poor show (and manager churn, and erosion of 5 points of market share).

This was Intels first full year with the new sales structure, with South Asia divided into four territories (North, East and Bangladesh; South and Sri Lanka; West and Central; and Pakistan).

What do sales and marketing do in a company with nearly 90% market share? Try to grow the total available market. Joint events with channel partners were held for Varanasis carpet makers and Surats diamond traders. Intel also worked on getting broadband bundled, through OEMs and partners, as a key to the PC experience.

Intel asked its top distributors to grow reach and share in tier-3 towns and beyond. It launched a hinterland program, with hub-and-spoke distribution: a city acts as a hub and smaller towns connect to it.

Rank-14
l Start-up Year: 1988 l Products & Services: Processors, platforms, boards, R&D l Branches:10 l Employees: 2,500 l Address: 23-56P, Deverabeesanahalli, Varthur Hobli Outer Ring Road, Bangalore-560037 l Fax: +91-80-26056190 l Website: www.intel.com
Highlights n Benefited from shift to laptops (now 25% of India PC sales), with $160 realization per laptop for Intel, versus $85 per desktop n Praveen Vishakantaiah took over as Intel India president n Launched Atom processor (ultra-mobile applications) and quad-core processors n Over 60% of Intels global sales now in Asia-Pacific (including Japan) Strengths p Strong 45 nm product line (Core2Duo) p Overwhelming market share; gained from AMDs decline last year p Top brand recall, unusual for an embedded product p Significant gains in servers across the spectrum Weaknesses q Inconsistent channel expertise across the regions. q Channel strategy changes was a cause for concern q Low stability, churn in line managers		Praveen Vishakantaiah, president, Intel India Ramamurthy Sivakumar, MD, South Asia R Sivakumar, managing director R Ravichandran, head, Sales Prakash Bagri, director, Marketing R Anish, director, Human Resource Rajesh Gupta, B Suryanarayanan, Sandeep Aurora, directors, Sales and Marketing

But the lack of channel expertise in some regions, frequent changes of managers in others, and changes in channel models, caused some rumblings among partners. Intel tried out a sub-disti model, then withdrew it; it then re-introduced it, for the top eight cities.

Intel also launched its low-cost, low-power Atom processors. Products based on the Atom, such as mobile Internet devices and cheap desktops, are expected in H2, 2008, opening up a new market.

And capping the previous years churn in senior managers, Praveen Vishakantaiah took over as president, Intel India from Frank Jones last October.

The market is great for Intel India: full dominance, with just enough marginal competition to keep things interesting. But with prices dropping, Intels challenge will be to growth that market fast enough to keep revenue grow level with the Indian tech industry.

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