HP India boasts of a market share of more than 70 per cent in the inkjet printer market. Having created and grown the market for non-impact printers, HP's next objective is to help customers make a transition to colour by providing low-priced printers that print photo-quality on plain paper.The addition of these printers in the DeskJet line will round out HP's family of photo-quality printers. The DeskJet 810C printer will be sold at a street price of Rs 10,495 and the HP DeskJet 610C at Rs 6,795. The two are intended to target users who demand enhanced features from their home printer with a lower price tag.

The inkjet market has experienced a phenomenal growth of 49 per cent in unit terms as per IDC figures and is expected to grow 46 per cent in 1999. "India is a keymarket for HP and we want to provide customers with best value products to provide an unparalleled home computing experience," said HP India's general manager marketing computer products V Krishnan.

"With these new generation of printers, customers can enjoy excellent print quality at an affordable price. By providing photo-quality printing on plain paper, HP is ensuring the use of colour in the home to be an economical and practical option," he added.

The features of the DeskJet 810C printer make it ideal for creating photo-quality output in reports and family projects. The new printer features increase flexibility as it supports both PC and USB-connect Macintosh systems and offers both parallel and USB ports, has a built-in photo quality with PhotoREt II and efficient printing with speeds up to 6.5 pages per minute in black and white and 4.5 ppm in colour.

To target SoHo segment with low-priced package

Hewlett-Packard India will soon target the small office home office (SOHO) customers witha sub-Rs 50,000 package, including a personal computer, colour printer and colour scanner.

The package will include seven bundled software worth Rs 10,000. As against a regular price of Rs 64,000 if each unit and software is bought separately, the package will cost Rs 49,900 only. HP's PCs with similar features cost about Rs 40,000, colour printer retails at about Rs 7,500 and colour scanner and copying convenience costs Rs 6,500.

The company aims to notch up sales of over 1,000 pieces within the first month of the launch and 70 per cent overall through the offering.