Microsoft has drawn up aggressive plans to increase the reach of its hardware products across India in the next 12 months.
"Under the pan-India 'Project Vistaar' the company will increase its retail presence from 6,300 outlets to 10,000 outlets," Mohit Anand, manager of home and entertainment division of Microsoft, said in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Most of these outlets would come up in cities and towns where it has a limited presence.
"We have 14 field sales representatives in 12 cities to manage our partners. We will put additional 20 people on the ground in 14 more cities," he said.
In all, the company will have presence in eight cities each in North and South India, six cities in the West and four in the East.
So far, the division has a presence in 52 cities through its channel partners.
Microsoft has emerged as one of the top three vendors of keyboards and mouse in India. "The top three players in the segment have a market share of 16 per cent to 18 per cent of the $30 million market," Anand said, adding Logitech and Samsung were the other big players.
Microsoft also announced the launch of its Pan-Asia Home and Entertainment Division Retail Centre Programme in India to improve the overall retail channel support to its channel partners.
Under the programme, the company would rate its partners based on their level of engagement with the company.
