The smartphone and tablet market in India is getting crowded and competitive. Now, California-based ViewSonic Technologies, a leading provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications products, will add to the choice of smartphones and tablets that Indian consumers will buy. Ajay Sharma, who recently joined ViewSonic India as country manager, after serving for over 20 years at leading technology giants like HCL, Reliance, Sony and Lenovo, spoke to Sudhir Chowdhary about the company?s focus and opportunities in India. Excerpts:

What has been the uptake of tablet PCs in the Indian market? Is the market ready for accommodating various brands of these computing devices?

Tablets entered the Indian market in the 2010. The industry got a boost only with the advent of many players in the market and launch of the 3G services. ViewSonic also launched their two tablets in India in end of 2010? ViewPad 7, a 7-inch tablet with Android 2.2 and ViewPad10, a 10-inch tablet with unique dual operating system with Android and Windows 7.

Tablets are fascinating for many reasons. These have efficiency like notebooks, replace mobiles and are sleek, portable, light weight, touch enabled and highly efficient in delivering the media and entertainment. One of the important selling attraction is the pricing of these devices, as the 4-7 inch tablets are available at the prices of the high-end smartphones available in the market. These factors have really stimulated the growth of tablets in the last few months.

Tablet estimates are big numbers?73 to 88% CAGR. The real joy of these devices is their portability and smartness in reading e-books, checking e-mail or browsing the internet. Android excels at this kind of computing, because the operating system is built specifically for touch screens and because the Android market is loaded with apps for consuming media.

There has been a gradual shift from PCs to notebooks, netbooks and tablets. Will this impact the market for monitors?

Globally, the technical analysts are skeptical about the potential threats that tablets bring in lowering the PC and laptop sales. From the very innovation of desktop to today?s 3D laptops or the tablet PCs, all are a process of growth and development in the technological front. With the advent of laptops, the desktops had to really smarten up enough to stand in the market, but the laptops? portability, sleek and easy to handle nature somehow affected the way consumers demand in desktops.

Today tablets are one of the ground breaking inventions; they offer the advantages of netbooks and add in some new benefits as well, making it a more compelling mobile computing platform than netbooks in many cases.

According to IDC, the PC shipment had seen a dip of around 3% late last year. But, I am not anticipating that the desktop or laptop paradigm is disappearing. I assume there is a lot of user specific demand for PCs and laptops. With the growth of SMBs, healthcare organisations, ICT in education, the monitor market is equally buoyant.

Smartphones are the latest gadgets that ViewSonic is going to launch in India. What are the value propositions you will offer to cut through the clutter?

Viewsonic is planning to launch two smartphones in the Indian market soon. One among the two handsets is Viewsonic V350, which will be dual SIM Android 2.2 touch panel smartphones with GSM/GSM combination or GSM/WCDMA combination. This is the USP of this product and on top of this, it has the latest ViewScene 3D interface. It is also equipped with features like MS Office, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 5 MP auto focus camera and many more. The other product is Viewpad 4, which will be sporting a 4.1-inch screen with latest OS Gingerbread and 1 GHz Qualcomm processor and Viewscene 3D interface.

What is the company?s marketing strategy? Do you plan to make it big in tier II cities as well in India?

The company wants to focus on key markets first and then move on to tier II cities. We believe in a 360 degree marketing approach to promote our products. Right from advertising to empowering the channels to sell effectively, ViewSonic constantly works to offer innovative schemes to help the channel fraternity.

We have tied up with large format retail stores for convenience and easy availability of the customer. We have tied up with Reliance Digital. It will help our presence in maximum number of cities. Reliance Digital will sell our total range of ViewSonic display products in their outlets across the country. We will also ensure that services are covered in all major markets and that?s why we have tied up with Pacetel for mobility service centres.

What is the market response to your projectors and what is driving their growth in the country?

Our projectors are doing extremely well in the Indian market. We have projectors for all the segments right from the XGA/Full HD, 3D and interactive projectors. Interactive projectors are doing extremely well in the education segment. Education has clearly emerged as the major buyer for projectors contributing to more than 50% of the total projector market in India.