Even as the Indian IT market reels under the pressure of poor growth, it has witnessed the entry of a third South East Asian IT player on domestic turf. Malaysia after Korea and Taiwan has marked its entry into the Indian hardware market. Malaysian hardware giant, Likom Computers, operates in the monitor market, which is the first Malaysian company to embark into the Indian hardware market. Likom’s Indian entry follows its foray into the Taiwan and Chinese market. The Indian licensee for the company, Delhi-based Mangal Electronics, has launched a range of 15-inch and 17-inch monitors and has plans to launch a TFT LCD monitor soon. According to Gaurav Jajodia, director, Mangal Electronics, it is also for the first time that monitors with wider viewable screens are being made available in the Indian market.

Facing competition from well-established Korean brands like Samsung and LG, as well as from Indian brands like Microtek and Samtel, the company will be leveraging on its USP of wider viewable screens on standard-sized monitors, to gain a foothold in the Indian market. According to Jajodia, the 17-inch range offers 16.3 inches of viewable area for the DynaFlat series as opposed to 16 inches offered by the other brands. On the other hand, for its 15-inch range, Likom gives a view of 14 inches for both the DynaFlat and Futura series. The standard size of the monitor is determined by the size of the picture tube, which covers the monitor’s frame as well, and therefore the viewable size is less than the standard size. “This feature will further improve upon picture quality, thereby making it particularly suitable for high-end applications like designing and CAD/CAM,” he says.

Apart from this feature, the company will also be leveraging on the competitive pricing of these monitors. Likom’s 17-inch DynaFlat series is priced at Rs 7,900, while the 17-inch Futura Series is available for Rs 6,900. The two models in the 15-inch category have been priced at

Rs 4,950. The 15-inch LCD monitor is priced at Rs 23,000 onwards. The monitors also provide for various safety and ergonomic features and multi-language support. “The market is slowly graduating from 15-inch to 17-inch and LCD monitors as there is an increased awareness among Indian customers for better resolution, picture quality, etc,” explains Jajodia.

Mangal Electronics was the first company to distribute LG’s monitors in the country. The company has also been the distributor for proprietary memories by Kingston, USA and IBM 1.44 MB floppy diskettes. The $1 million company operates through 150 resellers across the country