Joint Project With Google To Produce Cheap Laptops Begins In India
India has begun production of Chromebook, the low-cost laptop that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is anxious to “bring home.”
The computer will be built by Google’s parent company, Alphabet, in collaboration with HP, as announced on X-Twitter by Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. “We are partnering with HP to manufacture Chromebooks in India. These are the first Chromebooks made in India, and they will facilitate access to cost-effective and secure computers for Indian students.”
It’s a strategic move for Mountain View that will allow it to gain a competitive advantage over Windows, build a strong base in India, and capture some of the $2.1 billion promised to New Delhi as incentives. For Narendra Modi, this is a way to bring home the manufacturing arm of one of the big tech giants, strengthening the domestic tech sector. India is aiming to become one of the key countries in electronics manufacturing, also taking advantage of companies’ penchant for diversification, given the ongoing tensions between the sector’s leaders, namely the USA and China.
By manufacturing Chromebooks directly in India, Mountain View also avoids shipping costs and possible tariff measures (already announced by Modi for this type of product) – a fact that matters a lot for an entry-level laptop and therefore having a narrow margin – allowing it to occupy a strong position in a market of 1.4 billion people.
Chromebooks will be manufactured at Flex Ltd. near Chennai in southern India, where HP already has production lines. This is a portable device that uses a Linux-based operating system ChromeOS, alternative to Windows. This PC will be mainly intended for the education sector.
As expected, India provided $2.1 billion worth of incentives to boost the technology sector. According to the Italian economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, 32 companies, including Dell, HP, and Foxconn (the Taiwanese company that assembles Apple products), have joined the plan, and starting next year, they will be able to claim around 5% cashback of the finished goods’ factory price.