Guwahati, May 5: Two years after entering the smartphone segment, Taiwanese electronics major Asus has an advantage in the Northeast - it enjoys a 2 per cent higher market share than in the country.
"We forayed into the smartphone market just about two years back. The Northeast with a higher market share in this category at 4 per cent than the national (2per cent) is a top priority market for us, thanks to a comprehensive sales and distribution network besides acceptance of our products from a tech-savvy population," Peter Chang, regional head, South Asia and country manager, Systems Business Group, Asus India, told The Telegraph today.
The company has lined up a strategy of building on its network of distributors/partners and augmenting its staff here for catering to technology solutions of clients in the region.
"We plan to take the region's personal computer market share from 15 to 20 per cent and smartphone share from 4 to 6 per cent by the end of 2016. For this, we are increasing our staff from 42 to over 60 while planning to work closely with our sales and distribution channel partners across the Northeast," Chang said.
Asus today launched its latest range of mainstream and premium products in the Northeast market, comprising among others ZenFone Zoom, the "world thinnest smartphone" and a range of its flagship Republic of Gamers (ROG) series of premium laptops.
Currently, the company operates from 10 exclusive and about 170 multi-brand outlets in the Northeast. The region contributes about 7 per cent to the overall turnover of the company in India.
In the later part of 2015, it forayed into the desktop market in the country.
"We currently sell between 7,000 and 8,000 smartphones per month in the Northeast. Our target is to take this up to 10,000 in the next six months," Pankaj Kar, regional manager (mobile), east and branch head (Northeast), Asus India, said.
Over the past four to five years of India operations, Asus has acquired a strong presence in the laptop market with its USP being its ROG gaming series. Worldwide, the Taiwanese electronics major, which manufactures motherboards, notebooks, servers, multimedia devices and tablets, has been the leading player with a 34 per cent market share in the gaming laptop category.
"The ROG laptops fall in the high-end gaming category (priced between Rs 82,000 and Rs 3,25,900) and sell around 60 units per month here. In the overall laptop category, we sell around 1,300 units per month. We plan to ramp up sales in this category by 20 per cent," Kar said.
Asus has a vision of being among the top two in the personal computer category and among the top five in the smartphone segment in the Northeast by the end of this fiscal.
