Laptops

The number of players that have gathered sufficient votes for an analysis has
increased to seven, as against four last year. This shows how much action is
really happening in this segment. The market is growing, and laptops are
witnessing a stupendous growth. The brand persuasion situation of all the brands
has improved considerably over last year, but even now, they need to work harder
to become more persuasive. As far as brand pull goes, some of the brands have
improved their position and are gaining pull, while others have gone the reverse
way. Let's analyze this in more detail.

HP-Compaq continues to remain the most future ready brand, like last year.
IBM/Lenovo, which was close on its heels last year, has slipped to the third
spot, and the second spot has been taken by Dell. Possibly the change from IBM
to Lenovo has caused a slowdown in its speed. Dell has also been pretty
aggressive in the recent past, and the results are showing. Toshiba is at number
four, but while last year it was the last in the club, this year, it has three
other brands trailing behind it.

HP-Compaq has improved its brand persuasiveness over last year, i.e. it has
been able to convert more users from top of mind recall into likelihood of
purchase. Though it has improved its brand pull situation against last year, it
still continues to lose pull, with more users likely to switch out than switch
in. HP-Compaq has also improved its brand loyalty, from 42% last year to 57%.
30% of its existing said they're likely to switch to another brand, and a
majority of them are likely to switch to either Dell or IBM/Lenovo.

Dell has also improved its brand persuasiveness over last year, but needs to
improve further because it's still less persuasive. Dell has also improved its
brand pull situation. It was gaining pull last year as well, but this year, it's
gaining even more. The brand also enjoys the highest brand loyalty amongst its
customers at 65%. IBM/Lenovo has improved its brand persuasiveness considerably
over last year, and is in fact the most persuasive of the lot on a relative
scale. Its brand pull situation has also improved considerably over last year,
and while it was losing pull last year, this year it's gaining, i.e. there are
more users likely to switch into the brand than switch out. It has in fact the
best brand pull situation on a relative index. It continues to have 63% loyal
users.

Toshiba, Acer, and Sony are next in line. They have nearly similar scores on
the future readiness index. HCL is tailing all other brands and just about
managed to get sufficient votes to enter the club. All these four brands have
been fairly active in the market compared to the past, which is why they've made
it to the club. Let's see if they can sustain this momentum.