Gulf's laptop market growing 6o% per annum

Dubai: Gulf's notebook market is witnessing 60 per cent year-on-year growth, an official said.

"Customers are now looking for design and specs carefully compared to only CPU speed a couple of years back," said Santosh Varghese, regional general manager for Toshiba's Computer Systems Division.

"So all the vendors, including Toshiba, have geared up to meet the growing opportunities in the region. Even the screen size is getting smaller and smaller," He said Toshiba is number two in the UAE and expects to become number one with 20 per cent market share this year. We expect to sell more than 500,000 notebooks in the Gulf this year compared to 400,000 units last year."

Currently, Toshiba enjoys 18 per cent market share in the Middle East and expects 45-50 per cent year-on-year growth in the Gulf.

Toshiba aims to boost its market share with the launch of new Satellite series. The new products are with 13.3 inch to 18 inch screens and are priced between $700-$1050.

"We have plans to enter into the low-cost PC market, but we have to be very careful. It is not a complete PC, it is only a secondary PC. We plan to enter the market only when the time is right. We go as per the trend of the market," Varghese said.