Ultrabooks to contribute 50 percent of revenue by 2014: HP India

Bullish about its business prospects, technology giant Hewlett-Packard (HP) India said the sale of Ultrabooks would contribute 50 percent of its revenue by 2014."We expect by end of 2013, 15 per cent of our shipment will be Ultrabook and by 2014 end it should be around 35-40 percent. And, if it touches 40 per cent, it will contribute 50 percent to our revenue," HP India (Consumer Laptops) category head Ashish Gupta said here today.
Currently, laptops comprise about 70 percent of the company's total sales. The key differences between a notebook and an ultrabook are that the latter is much lighter and slicker, with double the battery life and shorter booting up time.
"Obviously, we would like to consolidate our market share. Ultrabooks will comprise 10 percent of our total volumes in the notebook segment in 2012," Gupta said.
Buoyed by new Ultrabook models, HP India is eyeing 21 percent market share in the consumer notebook segment in India by the year-end.
HP, which currently has over 50 models in its notebook portfolio, recently hiked prices by two per cent to three percent due to sharp rupee depreciation against the US dollar.

USD INR exchange rate: Major trends in past few years and where is it heading ?

The USD-INR exchange rate is an important indicator of investor sentiment and can significantly impact not only the fortunes of individual firms and sectors, but also the government. The exchange rate of the Indian rupee (or INR) is determined by market conditions. However, in order to maintain effective exchange rates, the RBI actively trades in the USD/INR currency market. The rupee currency is not pegged to any particular foreign currency at a specific exchange rate. The RBI intervenes in the currency markets to maintain low volatility in exchange rates and remove excess liquidity from the economy.

It is believed that there is significant downside risk to USD-INR exchange rate  and here are some risk factors behind this.

Rupee struggling for getting up

There is some weakness inbuilt of rupee due to the huge current account deficit and large amount of foreign currency convertible bonds coming for redemption. In past few months, Indian Rupee has depreciated by quite a bit. Rupee has gone from 44.08 to 53.93, 20% fall and it affected all sectors. For example, IT sector is having benefit , as their earnings are in dollars and with the worth of the dollar increasing, their income also increases. But real estate sector has been affected due to the rupee depreciation.The Rupee depreciated as much as 72 paisa in a single day as the stocks were encashed in dollars due to the massive selling of equities. Sensex was closed at 300 points and rupee lost around 10%, since it touched its peak in February. Since March, Rupee has depreciated almost 9% on account of local macroeconomics issues. Current account and fiscal deficits are hurting the Indian currency.Consumer products such as