HP to focus more on SMEs, Kol to have 1st ‘Connect’ centre in April
Times of India | 8 March 2025
12 Kolkata: Global PC and printing solutions leader HP is set to focus more on the SME sector in India. The company expects its India-specific brand for SMEs — HP Connect — to witness a surge in numbers during the year. SMEs contribute around 40% of GDP in India.
HP Connect was introduced in India six months ago, said HP India MD Ipsita Dasgupta. While the US giant now has three centres in the country, the count will increase to about 10-12 by the end of this year. Bengal will get its first HP Connect in April. While Dasgupta was in Kolkata this week, she also attended the Bengal Global Business Summit in Feb. The MD was also part of the CII National Council meeting with Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee.
"If I want to identify the SMBs which would have a role in the sector's business in coming days, the two criteria would be to find the businesses that are not operated out of houses and are in the cities. There are about 1.4 crore urban SMBs with fixed structures, with only 60% of them having at least one PC (as per internal HP study). The others have no access to the digital world," Dasgupta said. She pointed out that as soon as an SME was digitised, it could double it profitable growth almost overnight.
"HP Worlds are consumer stores. One of the things we have realised is that in in tier two-three cities, we don't have a way in which SMEs can have access to our commercial computers. For this, we launched HP Connect as a one-stop digital solution for SMEs," she added.
The 3 HP Connect Centres are in Kochi, Gurgaon and Noida. As many as 5 are scheduled to roll out in March, and 4 more by the end of this year. Dasgupta indicated that Bengal may have a second centre by end of the year.
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