Aakash maker, Datawind, claims to have received
over Rs 700 crore worth of retail orders for its ultra-low cost tablet.
According to a report by the Economic Times, the bulk orders and expressions of
interest for the tablet are from companies such as Glenmark Pharmaceuticals,
Accenture, HFCL, CNet Solutions, Medanta Medicity and Rajasthan Patrika.
Many colleges too have approached Datawind with orders ranging in thousands of
tablets, the report added. Aakash had been launched in India by the government
last year with much fanfare. The device costing USD 35 (about Rs 2,000) was
developed as part of the 'The National Mission on Education through Information
and Communication Technologies (NME-ICT)' of the Ministry of Human Resource
Development (MHRD).
Further, "We have order bookings of over 21
lakh units, which translates into orders worth Rs 700 crore from consumers.
Besides, we have bulk bookings from commercial and educational enterprises, whom
we would be selling the tablet with better specifications at almost double the
price," said Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind. The current version of Aakash
is selling at Rs 2500 online, and the next version is expected to be priced at
Rs 3000 per unit. Tuli says he has supplied about 10,000 tablets to the
government which are yet to convert into sales. "We are yet to receive the
payment from IIT Rajasthan for the tablets, which is almost half a million
dollars," he says. In addition, Datawind has given a bank guarantee worth Rs 50
lakhs to the government. "We can't supply the rest of the devices unless we get
a test criterion from IIT Rajasthan," he adds. In all this melee, his list of
retail and commercial orders is soaring at the rate of 50,000 per day, or Rs 25
crore, worth of pre-sales booking in two days.