HP returns to Japan’s consumer market after 4-year absence

Hewlett-Packard kicked off a push into Japan’s consumer PC market on Tuesday after being absent from the space for about four years.

“We believe the opportunity is right,” said Takafumi Oka, president of Hewlett-Packard Japan at a Tokyo news conference. “This will be an important milestone in our history.”

On Tuesday the company launched three new desktops and a laptop. It began marketing laptop PCs to consumers about six months ago, but the launch represents the start of a more serious attack on the home turf of local market leaders like Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba, and Sony.

HP is focusing its efforts on a direct sales model through the Internet and telephone. Additionally it will open three mini-stores inside major electronics shops in Tokyo where prospective customers will be able to try out the PCs, talk with HP representatives and place orders. Two of the stores will open on Wednesday and the third on Friday.

HP’s machines will be offered built-to-order and produced at an existing HP factory in Tokyo. That makes Japan the first market outside of the U.S. to have a local assembly plant for custom-ordered PCs, said Junichi Yamashita, who heads HP Japan’s mobile and consumer business.

As a result consumers will be able to get their PCs five days after ordering, he said.

HP Japan left the consumer market four years ago after it merged with Compaq and decided to concentrate on enterprise customers in Japan.

“The difference this time is that we have a better understanding we hope of the kinds of products you have to deliver to the Japanese market,” said Richard Walker, vice president and general manager of HP in an interview with IDG News Service. “Also we’re talking a different route to market this time. Previously we tried retail and quite honestly got killed.”

The direct sales model should make things different this time around, he said.

“As I heard the presentation I got the feeling that HP is now getting serious about Japan,” said Shunsuke Yoshizawa, head of AMD’s Japanese marketing unit, at the news conference. Yoshizawa said Japanese consumers tend to be “very picky” when it comes to buying a PC and putting their trust in a brand.

The company wouldn’t name a specific goal for its reentry into the consumer market but said it hopes to achieve a double-digit market share. Doing so would make it a major player in the Japan consumer market.

In the third quarter of 2006, the latest period for which figures are available, only four PC makers enjoyed a double-digit share of the entire PC market, according to IDC. NEC led the market with a 20.8 percent share, second was Fujitsu at 18.6 percent, third was Dell with a 13.5 percent share and fourth was Toshiba at 10.3 percent.