Opportunities Galore!

The demand for mobility products is witnessing unprecedented growth in India,
as the usage increases to meet daily business and personal needs. USB powered
portable hard drives find favor with almost everyone these days because of their
huge storage capacity, ease of use, portability, and reliability vis--vis
cost-effectiveness.

Both individual users and businesses small or big are driving the demand for
mobility products. In such a scenario, opportunities are immense for any vendor
in terms of volumes, especially as demands are steadily on the rise from tier-2
and tier-3 cities.

Need for More

The most popular mobility devices today are the USB powered storage devices,
flash drives and portable hard drives. The continuous growth in Internet vsage
has lead to a surge in the size of content, creating a larger appetite for
storage space. It is not uncommon for a desktop or notebook with a 250 Gb hard
drive to run out of storage space within a few months.

Even businesses are generating huge data on a daily basis, which they might
need to refer back at a later stage. And, as the concept of mobile office is
catching up fast, its natural they need reliable storage devices which can be
carried easily. It is therefore, foreseeable that the trend will only gain pace
with time.

The advent of small, personal devices for business and entertainment has lead
to the requirement of mobile data storage that are small enough to be carried
around conveniently, yet large enough in terms of capacity to store media-rich
digital contents. While such devices are being integrated into portable mobile
gadgets like PDAs, laptops, mobile phones, cameras, and digital entertainment
devices, they are also seeing standalone existence as portable storage devices
for generic use. As a result, the emergence of the On-Demand Worlddata that
is always available, ready at hand, at any timeis gaining force.

With the explosion in user generated digital content, Internet penetration
and emergence of digital devices that require backup in many forms, a storage
device is finding new usage in different verticals by the day. Apart from
professional data storage requirements, the Indian consumer is gradually
evolving into a digital entertainment consumer and is keen on creating and
maintaining personal media libraries of music, movies, digital photographs, etc.

The growth in mobile products has led to an upsurge in demand for consumer
storage products, as well, as consumers store, view and deal with large amounts
of data on their gadgets. With this growing demand, manufacturers of mobile
products have a great potential for sustained growth in the Indian market.

The Players

The trend in the IT products market is obviously moving toward portability
and mobility, leading to increase in demands of mobility products. Vendors
focusing on this market segment are the obvious beneficiaries. Ten years from
now, we foresee that flash will probably be the main technology for storage from
among those prevalent today. Therefore, Transcend has already made huge
investments on flash technology for devices such as Mp3, Digital Photo Frame,
and portable storage devices, as we expect the segment to grow tremendously in
the coming years, says Austin Huang, regional head, sales, Saarc and Apac,
Transcend.

Ten years from now, we foresee that flash will probably be the main technology for storage from among those prevalent today Austin Huang, regional head, sales, Saarc and Apac, Transcend	The youth market is a key target audience where SanDisk expects to fuel its future growth in the country Manisha Sood, country manager, SanDisk, India & Saarc

According to Sandeep Popli, national business manager, Imation India, storage
has a lot of options for the fast evolving mobile storage needs of todays
consumer, Our USB flash drives and external storage devices cater to the
growing needs of reliable, portable, and larger capacity storage space.

While portable storage devices are gaining popularity, not far behind is the
demand for various mobile PC peripherals or laptop accessories like
USB/Bluetooth/cordless mouse, webcams, speakers, etc. We see people moving to
cordless mouse and keyboards since the last two years. Cordless and compact
products like the Logitech VX Nano cordless laser mouse, cordless 2.4 GHz
Presenter, QuickCam Pro for notebooks, etc, are doing really well in the
market, says Subrotah Biswas, country manager, India & Saarc, Logitech.

The growth of youth population in India has led to an increase in demand for
mobility products like mobile phones, Mp3 players, and digital cameras.
According to a study conducted by Nokia, Indias youth market for mobile phones
has been growing at 300%. The youth market is a key target audience where
SanDisk expects to fuel its future growth in the country. We are developing a 32
Gb SDHC card for digital cameras that offer faster read and write speed of 15
Mbps. By 2011 we are also likely to launch a 128 Gb Micro SD card for mobile
phones, which will be able to hold 134 full length movies, says Manisha Sood,
country manager, SanDisk, India & Saarc.

With fourty-two product lines covering home computing to enterprise data
centers, Seagate delivers advanced solutions for every industry that requires
portable digital storage. Today no other hard drive manufacturer matches
Seagates breadth of solutions. In external storage, Seagate has two product
linesthe elegant Seagate FreeAgent product family and the Maxtor OneTouch 4
product family, says Rajesh Khurana, country manager, India & Saarc, Seagate
Technology.

Reaching Out

High adoption of mobility products offers a huge opportunity for channel
partners. By associating themselves with reputed vendors having a strong brand
identity, channel partners will be able to sell their products in large numbers.
However, the Indian users are not only price-conscious, they also seek proper
after-sales support and service. This is an additional responsibility that both
vendors and their partners have to cater. And to cater to the growing needs of
mobility devices, vendors are keen to create a widespread channel network to
reach out to maximum number of users.

The basic distribution model is similar to any other IT product lines.
National distributors give products to the sub-distributors and resellers for
secondary sales. For mobile hard disk, the preferable channel is the IT channel.
For flash drives or flash cards, the channel is both IT and telecom. However, as
pointed out by Vibhor Agarwal, director, Supertron Electronics, a national
distributor for brands like Transcend, Seagate, IBM, Acer, Intel, and its own
brand Supercomp, the key channel for flash drives and Mp3 players are more of
telecom and photography, and partially IT.

According to Biswas of Logitech, the distribution channel varies depending
upon the product, We have peripherals like AudioHub that is more relevant to
the IT distribution channel. Our Harmony range of remotes is retailed through
retailers like Croma, Staples, and Reliance, along with CE and AV stores.

Today, no other hard drive manufacturer matches Seagates breadth of solutions Rajesh Khurana, country manager, India & Saarc, Seagate Technology	Storage has a lot of options for the fast evolving mobile storage needs of todays consumer Sandeep Popli, National Business manager, Imation India	The distribution channel varies depending upon the product. We have peripherals like the AudioHub which is more relevant to the IT distribution channel Subrotah Biswas, country manager India & Saarc, Logitech

Each one of our diverse product lines has a different distribution channel
so as to ensure effective penetration of the market, as each product line caters
to a distinct segment with very focused needs. Our newly appointed distributors
have extended our reach across B, C and D class cities, with access to more than
8,000 resellers, and the process to activate them has already started, adds
Popli of nation.

Although it is always advisable to follow the national distribution mode for
better understanding and a focused channel approach leading to effective
penetration of the market, vendors are looking for other models too. This is
because each of these product lines cater to a distinct segment with very
focused needs. Imation sells its optical products through stationary and office
supplies partners, and magnetic tapes through system integrators.

Seagate has a long-running distribution model, which has served well in the
Indian context. For external storage products, Seagate has four distributors, of
which two are exclusively with the external productsFortune Marketing for the
FreeAgent range and Supertron Electronics for the Maxtor range. These
distributors combine with partners under the Seagate Partner Program comprising
the core categories of sub-distributors, system integrators, and retailers.

SanDisk has a diverse portfolio of flash-based memory products like mobile
memory cards, USBs and Mp3 players. Hence, it is essential for it to be present
in all retail channels, from IT/telecom to consumer electronics, in order to
address a broad users-base.

The Retail Angle

With the emergence of organized retailing in India, mobile and laptop
accessories makers are now largely focusing on this medium to sell their
products.

SanDisk has a strong presence across retail outlets in India. Our goal is to
have a significant presence on the retail shelves in country. We constantly
endeavor to educate retailers through various training programs, says Sood.

Logitech too has a significant presence in LFRs like Croma, Reliance, etc.
Not far behind, Transcend is keen to increase its focus to showcase its products
in LFRs. Seagate, on the other hand is not too active in this segment. However,
its existing channel is addressing the retail segment. We do not see the need
for any special strategy at present. We see the emergence of LFR as just another
upcoming route to reach the end-customer, explains Khurana.

In the telecom sector, companies like Nokia and Reliance have developed
aggressive retail strategies to distribute their own range of mobility products.
Nokia has nine Nokia concept stores and 600 Nokia priority dealers in India. The
Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group has its Reliance World, which is a
nationwide chain of retail concept stores for all its products and services.
Today, there are 242 Reliance World Outlets in 105 Indian cities. Apart from
that there are 2,000 franchise/distribution channels that provide various
services to users.

Piyali Guha

piyalig@cybermedia.co.in