This Indian startup wants to sell computers as a subscription service … at Rs 399 per month – The Indian Express

Early last year, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Selligion Technologies co-founders Naman Chakraborty, Yoshita Sengupta and Joby John observed how smartphones that initially promised to close the Covid learning gap for kids were far from being the computer replacement they thought it would be. This led to the idea of developing “Praho”, a cloud-based kid-friendly computer that will be available for a monthly subscription fee before the end of the year, lowering the entry barrier for consumers by subsidising the cost of hardware.
“Indians may not pay for one app but they have been paying for cable TV since the 90s and then they switched and did that for Tata sky,” COO Sengupta explains the rationale behind the subscription-based model for Praho and why it might work in India. “I don’t think the subscription model has a problem in India as long as a service or a product offers value for money,” she told indianexpress.com in an interview.
The consumer PC market is crowded, but the Mumbai-based startup is betting on a unique sales pitch that it hopes will become a trendsetter and expand the penetration of PCs, among the lowest in the world. The company will charge Rs 399 a month to allow people to subscribe to a computer. They, however, would need to pay Rs 3600 as a one-time payment as caution money.
In the consumer electronics space, the subscription model is still new and something many companies don’t do. GoPro has tried the model and the early reception has been encouraging. But Sengupta believes they are solving a larger problem of “mainstreaming” PCs which hasn’t happened in India despite promises made by PC brands and chipmakers in the past.
It’s fair to say that for a lot of Indians a smartphone is the default computing device due to the accessibility offered by affordable mobile data plans and the dropped cost of hardware. “People who have a smartphone, don’t have a computer because they can’t afford it. Not because they don’t want it,” John chips in, adding that price point is the biggest barrier which is stopping an average Indian consumer from buying a PC.
The question of why PCs haven’t taken off like smartphones in India has been left unanswered for a decade now. Sengupta says the smartphone boom since 2017 was because Reliance [Jio] understood the price processing of an average Indian from a budgeting standpoint. “The problem here perhaps is the fact that the entry-level barrier is Rs 20,000 which may not work for a parent who needs to choose between a tutor coaching plus education fee plus bus fare plus uniform,” Sengupta said.
She hopes a monthly model where the customer gets to pay a single fee and get access to the computer is what is needed to bring computers to the masses. “All we are doing right now, to begin with, is reducing the entry barrier and the exit barrier to Rs 399,” she added.