MarQ, Flipkart's private label electronics and home appliances brand, recently launched its first laptop in India. The new Falkon Aerbook marks the company's foray into a very sensitive market, and one in which buyers have lots of choices from very established brands already.

Even after launching home appliances, accessories, and many other kinds of devices, MarQ will have quite a challenge ahead of it. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Flipkart has thousands of visitors every day who will come across the product in search results.

We started with the most obvious questions: why did MarQ decide to get into the laptops market, and why now? As Menon said: “If you look at MarQ by Flipkart as a brand today, it has been active for a couple of years, and is present in every consumer electronics category including televisions, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, and home audio. In fact, the latest launches we've done have been water purifiers, air purifiers, and a TV media streaming device.”

He continued: “The brand today has the scale, the wings, and the customer traction to be able to command trust and credibility for a very high-involvement category like laptops. This is typically a category that customers research a lot. A laptop is a product that they keep at home for anywhere between five and eight years. That's why this product is getting launched now and not a year back. We wanted to get into many, many, many more categories and then finally get into something like PCs.”