By Editor
Mitsumi is not sleeping on its laurels as evidenced by a flurry of continent-wide activities in Q1.
Mitsumi continues in its quest to entrench its position as one of the biggest names in IT distribution in Africa. Towards this end, the company has been involved in a lot of initiatives in the last few months.
In February, Mitsumi and its partner WD, engaged in a series of partner roadshows in West Africa. The first of these events took place on February 19 in Lagos, Nigeria. The road trip was expected to reach key cities in the Central and West African market in the following months. The events were meant to introduce Mitsumi Distribution as WD’s focus distributor in the Central and West African region to resellers.
Last year, WD appointed Mitsumi as its distributor on the continent to cover the key markets of Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo and Algeria.
Commenting on the roadshows, Mitesh Shah, Managing Director at Mitsumi Distribution said: “We are very pleased to launch the WD product line in Nigeria. We have received tremendous interest from our customers. Nigeria is our home turf in West Africa and in the coming months Mitsumi plans to spruce up the Nigeria operations.”
Then in March, Mitsumi signed a partnership with Samsung to be an official distributor for all Samsung IT products across sub-Saharan Africa.
Through this partnership agreement, Mitsumi will deliver the full suite of Samsung IT consumer and business solutions to the market. Samsung was keen to leverage Mitsumi’s position as one of the leading African distributors; the company’s experience of the broader African continent and its expertise having been in operation for 17 years across 19 African countries. The agreement will enable Samsung to expend its logistical footprint on the back of an established African distributor and support network.
The partnership came into effect as of Friday, March 01, 2013 – where Mitsumi’s offices in 19 countries with in-country stock points will serve Samsung’s African distribution needs.
“We intricately understand how to cost-effectively support the technology needs of end users of all sizes, including small- and medium-sized businesses, large enterprises, educational institutions, government agencies, and consumers and certainly see this partnership with Samsung as an opportunity to continue our growth across the continent,” Mitesh said.
On April 20 Mitsumi was awarded the IT Distribution Company of the Year award at the 4th Beacon of ICT Awards (BoICT) Awards Nigeria. The BoICT Awards are an annual industry-wide celebration of talents, contributions and commitments to the growth of the ICT industry in Nigeria. A constellation of leading players in ICT and financial space were gathered for this year’s event.
The BoICT Awards is one of the biggest red carpet events in Nigeria and has hosted many of the leading lights in Nigeria’s ICT and public service, from Ernest Ndukwe, the father of modern Nigeria telecom to Eng. Yomi Bolarinwa, a renowned public servant, among others.
Ndukwe, former boss of the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), was the special guest of honour. Rajiv Patel – Country Manager at Mitsumi has received the award
Mitesh said: “We are delighted that Nigerians have recognized us and we are proud to receive this honour. Mitsumi has a long history in the Africa market and we always demonstrated our ability to diversify our business model and add value to partners.”
Mitsumi was formed in Nairobi, Kenya in the year 1996 with the aim of introducing appropriate and affordable technologies to Africa and now 17 years on, it’s one of Africa’s largest ICT distributors. The company is the authorized distributors for leading global IT brands with a growing brand portfolio that includes HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Toshiba, Samsung, Microsoft, Sandisk, Western Digital, BenQ, Tripplite and Huawei.
Mitsumi has 15 warehouses and eight service centres in Africa. These capabilities helps the company reduce turnaround time in distributing products to the African markets. Mitsumi’s credit facilities to partners has also helped consolidate its leadership advantage in Africa.