Google to Bring Chromebook to India in co-branding with Acer for 22,999 rupees ($371), and with HP for 26,990 rupees

October 11, 2013 Leave a comment

October 10, 2013, 4:57 PM

Google to Bring Chromebook to India

R. JAI KRISHNA

In India, the Chromebook will be sold under a co-branding with Acer Inc.2353.TW -0.50% and Hewlett-Packard Co. Google Inc. is bringing its low-priced Chromebook laptops to the Indian market next week, escalating competition with Microsoft Corp.MSFT +0.89% in the market. Google’s laptop is a tad cheaper than most, because consumers don’t have to pay for software that typically comes preloaded. Google already leads with its Android mobile software both within and outside India.

More and more Indians are accessing Internet to check email, listen to music and do work on mobile devices, spurring demand for smartphones and tablets. Google’s move also comes ahead of an festival season that typically coincides with a rise in consumer purchases. Most Indians get a bonus during Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, which leaves them with extra cash to spend on buying products and services.

In India, the Chromebook will be sold under a co-branding with Acer Inc. for 22,999 rupees ($371), and with Hewlett-Packard Co. for 26,990 rupees. The price will include 100 gigabits of free storage for two years on Google’s online storage system Google Drive.

The Chromebook runs on Google’s Chrome software and comes preloaded with Google’s email service, work applications, YouTube video service as well as online storage space.

The laptop computers will be available in Delhi and Mumbai at Reliance Industries Ltd500325.BY -0.61% technology superstore – Reliance Digital, as well as through online store – Flipkart.com starting Thursday next week.

Because the Chromebook needs to be connected to the Internet most of the time, Google has tied up with Bharti Airtel Ltd., and Tikona Digital, to offer Internet subscriptions as a promotional offer.

Filed under TMT Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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