Minister pushes use of locally assembled PCs

Minister pushes use of locally assembled PCs

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister for Communications and Information Sofyan Djalil
launched a campaign promoting locally-assembled personal
computers (PCs) in an exhibition here on Tuesday.

He said at the opening of the one-day exhibition that the
domestic production of low-priced PCs would help increase sales
among the youth across the country, thereby increasing their
skills in information and communication technology.

The exhibition presented 18 small-scale PC-makers from 18
towns that have been assisted by Intel Indonesia Corporation to
produce PCs bearing their own brands.

These companies exhibited PCs with Intel Celeron and Pentium
processors with memory capacities ranging from 128 megabytes (Mb)
to 512 Mb and hard disk capacities ranging from 30 to 80
gigabytes (gb).

Their products were offered at prices ranging from Rp 2.8
million (US$297) to Rp 8.5 million a unit.

Intel Indonesia Corporation country manager Budi Wahyu Jati
said his company aimed to increase the number of small scale
companies assisted by Intel to 40 by the end of this year.

Indonesian Computer Business Association (Apkomindo) chairman
Hengki Tjokro Adiguno said the country had 4,055 small-scale
computer-related companies operating in 110 cities.

Budi said Intel trained the companies participating in the
program about financial and marketing management, branding and
other business practices.

"We hope the participating companies will be able to produce
PCs of high quality and sell them at competitive prices," he
said.

Intel currently controls a 99 percent share of the branded PC
market in Indonesia.

According to market research firm IDC, about 873,000 branded
PCs were sold in the country last year and the number is expected
to exceed one million this year.