Dell India recently expanded its consumer portfolio with the launch of the new XPS 13 and Alienware 15, aiming to capture the country's young demographic with high-performance technology. In an interview, Raj Kumar Rishi explains how the company is making its premium brands more accessible to meet the demands of a growing market of gamers and creators.

Dell India recently expanded its consumer portfolio with the launch of the new XPS 13 and Alienware 15, aiming to capture the country's young demographic with high-performance technology. In an interview, Raj Kumar Rishi explains how the company is making its premium brands more accessible to meet the demands of a growing market of gamers and creators.

Dell India recently expanded its consumer portfolio with the launch of the new XPS 13 and Alienware 15, aiming to capture the country's young demographic with high-performance technology. In an interview, Raj Kumar Rishi explains how the company is making its premium brands more accessible to meet the demands of a growing market of gamers and creators.

Against the backdrop of a significant expansion in India’s PC market, Dell Technologies recently unveiled a landmark consumer portfolio designed to bridge the gap between aspirational luxury and mainstream accessibility.

In an era where the personal computer has effectively become a mobile office for a young, digitally native population, the company is doubling down on its commitment to the region by introducing the XPS 13 and a more resilient Alienware 15 tailored for the burgeoning community of Indian gamers.

With this strategic pivot, computer giant Dell says it aims to capture a market where two-thirds of the population is under the age of 35.

We sat down with Raj Kumar Rishi, Vice President and Managing Director, Consumer and Small Business, Dell Technologies India, to discuss how the organisation is navigating component costs and shifting user demands to deliver what he describes as "premium devices at mid-premium prices". Here are some excerpts:

Q: Is India now a major market, given you just announced four new products in a single launch?

Raj Kumar Rishi: As a market, we are super excited about India. One of the big reasons is the demographics; we are a very young country. We know that two-thirds of our population is under 35, and we are seeing some very exciting professions and careers coming up.

In my family itself, I have a YouTube filmmaker and a young girl who wants to start a fashion brand on her own. This basically means that the need for technology has gone up, because in my age, in my time, if I had to start any such business, I would need to hire an office setup.

Now your PC effectively is your office. With that background and with AI catching up so fast, I think the need for the right PC device—and varied PC devices—has gone up significantly. This is one aspect.

The second aspect is that gaming penetration is going up. There are serious gamers, and there are hobby gamers, but gaming is actually one market which is increasing its mix in the overall consumer PC market. Keeping all this in mind—not that we have come to know of this just now, as this is something we already and always knew—we have over the years been making sure that we address as many of these segments as possible. What is going to happen today that is different is that we are launching not just one product; we are launching multiple products, and they fit in different segments in our scheme of things or the usages I spoke about.

Q: So, where do these new offerings come in?

The first one is the XPS 13. It is the lightest thin-and-light device—a 1 kg device—at a very exciting price point of ₹79,900. That is the stellar product and has all the technology, the design, and the experience of XPS but at a much more attractive price point.

Number two is the Alienware 15. Our Alienware used to always address more serious gamers, but now we are expanding the Alienware category per se—and the Alienware 15 starts at around ₹1,18,990 (the AMD one).

Third is the Dell 14S and 16S. These are AI devices based on Intel Ultra Series 3 processors. Again, they are AI-ready machines.

XPS 13 is for productivity for the professional who wants to use a thin-and-light machine. Alienware 15 is for gamers. It is both Intel-based and AMD-based—[this is] the first time we have got AMD in Alienware.

Then, of course, the 14S and 16S give us that expansion in the space.

These three devices will be available at dell.com, Dell exclusive stores, and great equation with all the LFRs like Reliance and so on, and retailers like Amazon and Flipkart [mean that these devices] will be available across [across these platforms].

We are focusing on certain players for certain products, but making sure that wherever the consumer wants to buy, these devices are available.

Q: How are these new products factoring in current pricing challenges, specifically the hike in RAM prices?

Raj Kumar Rishi: I can say how Dell is addressing it. What are our strengths first? Our strengths are technology and innovation. Second, our strength is our super robust supply chain. Third is making sure that we give the right experience across the customer touchpoints.

If I talk about technology and innovation, we are already bringing devices like Alienware 15; we never had Alienware in that price range. We never had XPS in that kind of price range.

In a way, we are expanding our most premium consumer product portfolio. The top two premium devices that come to your mind are Alienware and XPS. Both are being introduced at price points which were never there before, at a time when you just mentioned the cost. We are doing this. Obviously, we are using the fact that we are ahead on the technology curve most of the time, our relationships, our partnerships, and then, of course, our supply chain. This is one aspect of it. At a broader level, we will continue to give the right value to our customers. Through these new products and existing products, we will stay competitive. Whatever the external factors are, such as cost, that is there for the industry. Our job is to make sure that we continue giving the right value to our customers. That is how we are looking at it.

Q: But has it factored in your starting prices? Is there a certain marked hike? Because if you look at Sony, the PlayStation had a jump. If you look at other PC makers, base prices have slightly jumped in the last one year.

Raj Kumar Rishi: We continue to be competitive and give the right value for all those price bands, configurations, and the products that we have. By launching the new products that I spoke about, we are doing a mix of everything.

Q: Is it accurate to describe this new Alienware and XPS lineup as "mid-premium," given these brands were previously strictly high-end premium?

Raj Kumar Rishi: These are premium devices coming at mid-premium prices.

THE WEEK: From the 2010s—from 2008 or 2009—HP was the major one that really occupied that "mid-premium" space in India with the DV6. Then, over the years, every brand had one. Dell had the Vostro, too, which you could configure to that range. Right now, the XPS brand is occupying the space where the higher-end DV6s were. Are we right in this analysis?

Raj Kumar Rishi: Let’s leave out the competition brands. As far as our own portfolio is concerned, we have made it much more comprehensive. One way of looking at it is by looking at price bands, which every industry and category does. The second way of doing that—which is what is happening and where I started from—is looking at use cases.

Let’s say I am talking about this YouTube filmmaker; Alienware 15 is actually a device for that person. As a young person, I am sure they game, but they also need a creative device. Depending on the workload that they have, they can decide to buy Alienware 15 or buy the higher devices. I would love for them to buy Alienware. That is the device for that person.

Now, for this fashion brand creator, XPS can be a device for them. It is not that we designed XPS with that person in mind.

We are trying to address people who need AI workloads or long battery hours with the 14S and 16S.

Within that, if you are a creator, you need a 16-inch; if you are more of a professional, you need a 14-inch. For us, India is a very focused market for Dell.

One of the ways of addressing that is to create the right products, which we have done. Then you make sure you have the right go-to-market omni-channel approach.

Then, you ensure after-sales support. We have one of the best-in-class support infrastructures, and that is what the users will tell you. They trust us for our after-sales support. We are very happy and very excited about what we are bringing, more so with these devices.

Q: Speaking of service, Dell had this very comfortable image of being one of the most serviceable laptops because of the Vostro. The precedent that Vostro has set is that you can service everything if you know enough—you can even service it at home. So, now in 2026, as you move to the higher end, what do you have to say about brands opting into soldered-in units over time, following what Apple did, where repairability? Is Dell going to have more that are easy to repair, or are we following this industry trend of it being very hard to repair?

Raj Kumar Rishi: I do not look at it that way. We are not approaching this by trying to limit the user. There are pros and cons of having various kinds of machines, but we have both kinds. There are upgradable machines where the RAM and other things can be enhanced. This is not a cliché statement: we like to give the best experience to our users because we live in a competitive world. We want to make sure that we provide the best customer experience by giving them a best-in-class product and then having the support.

In fact, the amount of investment that we make in creating that support infrastructure and providing on-site support for a large part of our portfolio is significant. We haven't really approached it based on what another brand or segment is doing.

Q: Gaming in India is massive, but much of it is concentrated on mobile. Why is now the right time for a specific PC gaming launch of this scale in India?

Raj Kumar Rishi: First of all, mobile versus PC is a larger discussion of PC penetration. We are among the lower PC penetration countries versus mobile penetration. There have been inflexion points, like COVID, where people saw the necessity of a PC versus a mobile device.

With the demographics I spoke about, especially the young generation and various new professions, the PC is an important device. We believe PC penetration should significantly go up in the country.

Within the gaming sector, we believed that there is a larger set of customers who would like to have an Alienware experience but were not able to because we were only addressing the higher end of that market. Now we have come to a broader market to give that access to a larger set of customers.

Even without the mobile versus PC discussion, gaming accounts for close to 15 to 20 per cent of the consumer PC market. It is a large part of the market, and it is not just for gamers; creators and high-end users also prefer a device where they can do occasional gaming.

For gamers, Alienware 15 is a good device. For people who have multi-purpose machine requirements—gamers, creators, or high-end professionals—they can also use Alienware 15.

Long story short, we are trying to give access to the Alienware brand to a broader set of customers in a market which is already very big.

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