Here’s some good news for people looking for cheap laptops. Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd, buoyed by the tremendous success of the Asus and OLPC, is launching a compact laptop costing around Rs.15,000 by mid-2008.

It is the same company which shook India’s laptop market last year with a notebook computer for Rs.19,999. The secret behind marketing laptops at shoe-string prices is that ACi manages to cut costs through innovations like providing an aluminium body rather than fibre or plastic.

The company will open its own showrooms all over India and enter into tie-ups with supermarkets or malls and retail showroom franchisees.

ACi first entered the Indian computer market in 2004 when it launched desktop PC at Rs. 29,999. And within just three quarters of the fiscal the company captured around 40 percent of the laptop market in the country. Two years later, the company launched laptops at a competitive price of Rs. 19,999 – for the first time in India. This virtually sent the prices of computers crashing in the country. Now, customers are choosing a laptop over a PC since the price barrier between them has been erased.

Posted by Manas in laptop