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Nvidia Is Selling Its Own GPUs in India at a Discount Compared to OEMs

Nvidia Is Selling Its Own GPUs in India at a Discount Compared to OEMs

By Rishi Alwani | Updated: 28 May 2018 17:55 IST

Highlights

Nvidia India has quietly launched its own online store
It's selling GPUs like the GTX 1060 for Rs. 10,000 less than OEMs
GPU adoption in India sits at around 35 percent

Nvidia is selling its GPUs at a discount compared to other OEMs. The company's India website now hosts a store that lets you purchase some of its GPUs such as the GeForce GTX 1060, GTX 1070, GTX 1080, and GTX 1080 Ti among others at prices lower than current market rates. A quick check on Amazon India pegs the GTX 1060 from Zotac at Rs. 33,000 while the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition is available for a much more palatable Rs. 24,500, with a similar difference between GTX 1070 GPUs on either platform. The disparity extends to the GeForce GTX 1080 as well, with a difference of almost Rs. 20,000 between buying it from Nvidia and other options.

This price gap isn't restricted to buying GPUs online, making a few calls to some computer stores at Mumbai's Lamington Road and Delhi's Nehru Place indicates an almost equal cost in what you'd be paying.

And while lower prices are welcome, it also makes us wonder why Nvidia is quiet about the entire situation. The company hasn't gone public about the availability of these cards at a lower price, preferring to list it online without a word, much like its recent listing of the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB.

It brings up a host questions. For one, why is this pricing restricted to Nvidia's website and not other retail channels? Can Nvidia maintain price parity and availability when its next generation Volta GPUs come along? Is this a short-term solution or will it continue for Volta as well? Gadgets 360 reached out to Nvidia with these questions and we were met with a firm "no comment".

That said, sources in the supply chain have claimed that this is Nvidia's way of maintaining some price control in the face of bitcoin mining, it simply cannot keep its partners in check in India. In addition to this, they claim that the average selling price for GPUs hasn't gone up, with most volume sales to normal, non-bitcoin users preferring the GTX 1030 and 1050 to the point where they've been the most sold GPUs this generation thus far making this one way to make up the difference. One person familiar with the matter suggested that it's a stock dumping exercise with an announcement for Volta expected soon.

During the launch of its 10 series GPUs, Nvidia stated that the adoption rate of GPUs in India is around 35 percent. Safe to say it, probably hasn't increased by much since then. And with the 10 series line being two years old this year, its sales would probably have a longer tail in India the moment Nvidia brings in its next generation GPUs. It's something the company has witnessed in the past with the GTX 960 being its top-seller even as the 10 series was out.

Interestingly, Nvidia's India site has a page for Nvidia Battlebox as well. It was Nvidia's attempt at tying up with system integrators to push a line of pre-built PCs to little fan fare when it was announced two years ago. Although you can't order one on the site just yet, it perhaps hints at a revival of the concept.

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