Updated : April 27, 2014 03:00 am,
By R. Narayan
By R. Narayan
D-Link is strengthening its presence in Saudi Arabia with plans to open a new sales office in Jeddah this year
D-Link is strengthening its presence in Saudi Arabia with plans to open a new sales office in Jeddah this year. This is in addition to its regional office based in Riyadh as well as a sales office in Al-Khobar. RMA center as well as Tele support continues to be centralised out of the vendor’s Riyadh office.
D-Link which has a strong channel program is making sure partners are able to benefit further. The networking vendors has channel programs in place to cover both resellers and systems integrators. The vendor is now looking to hold channel roadshows every quarter.
Tayyab Mehmood, Country Manager for D-Link in KSA says, “We focus on holding channel training events that take place either at our premises or at our distributor’s premises. Such regular interaction with the channel helps keep them informed about our product roadmaps. With the speed at which we deliver innovative products as well as being the first to introduce them in the channel, we have realized the need to keep our channel always updated.”
He adds, “We are always ahead of our competitors when it comes to product innovation. An outstanding example is of wireless AC routers, which D-Link was the first to release in the Saudi market and we have seen good traction in this range of products. We are seeking to keep the momentum going. Our 11AC product line up includes AC1900 routers capable of 1900 Mbps speed, portable 11AC routers and 11AC enabled cameras.”
While the market in KSA was slow last year, Tayyab asserts that D-Link actually had a healthy growth in 2013 and is placed well to have a much better year of sales in 2014.
He says, “We see the overall market indices looking upbeat. D-Link has a portfolio of innovative products from the cloud enabled products to our Wireless AC range which are in great demand. Recently we successfully introduced our award winning Baby Camera as well. Besides, we are seeing encouraging growth in segments including IP surveillance, 3G/4G enabled products including dongles and routers etc. as we see good growth in 3/4G technology usage in KSA”
According to Tayyab, the cloud portfolio is increasingly popular among residential and also the commercial segment. The company’s Cloud app is a free download for those who purchase any one of the Dlink cloud enabled products and can help access that product , whether camera or storage, remotely from any location using the smartphone app.
Further, the Manufacturer has a wide portfolio of IP surveillance products including cameras NVRs etc. In fact the company is further broadening its range of NVRs with models that will have more functionalities.
D-Link is likewise strengthening its sellout volumes through both channel as well as power retail. However, Tayyab also adds that the focus on channel is much stronger since it contributes close to 70% of its sales volumes in Saudi Arabia.
The manufacturer has four distributors in Saudi Arabia including a new appointment at the beginning of the year. The four distributors for the manufacturer are Al-Falak Distribution, Adwaa Al Shuja, New Solutions which are all based out of Riyadh and also Jeddah based Net Technology. New Solutions was appointed in the beginning of this year.