With the massive investments, the company is eyeing a top position among the computer vendors in India by 2007. SCEL is a joint venture partnership between the South African IT major, Sahara Computers Ltd, and Sahara India Pariwar.
"The challenge that we take on is not only to compete within the existing space but to bring innovative products at aggressive pricing and combine this with unique marketing initiatives that will in totality lead to greater penetration of the product in yet untapped markets," George Van Der Merwe, chief operating officer, SCEL said.
"Given the advantage of local manufacturing coupled with the strength of our expertise in research and development function, we are aiming for market leadership in the PC segment by the year 2007 and expect to grow the PC market in India," he added.
The unconventional channel route adopted by SCEL includes the creation of various retail experience zone stores for which the company will be investing over Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).
The company announced an additional investment of Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) in the expansion of the retail segment alone. It plans to tie up with middle and lower middle segment retail stores like Vishal Mega Mart for this.
Within a span of six months the company has reached out to more than 6,000 conventional IT channel partners across India and has set up a national distributor as well as local distributors with hybrid model of distribution.
"We will be investing another Rs 150 crore (Rs 1.5 billion) in this channel to further the growth in this area," Van Der Merwe said.
To create demand for the Sahara Computer brand the company aims to reach out to the B, C and D category towns by educating the masses in these towns by providing the best computing solutions together with offering the loan schemes in tie up with various banks.
Known as project Goldmine, it is aimed at touching 700 towns across India. A similar programmed helped the company become the fastest growing brand in Africa.
The company also launched a media centre personal computer, a tablet PC and a AMD Turion powered notebook with integrated mobile technology.
