Asus losing market in Kerala

N R Sethuraman

Chennai

November 19th, 2007

Owing to poor service support, motherboard manufacturer Asus seems to be
losing its market in Kerala. Complaints from partners selling Asus motherboards
are increasing by the day. Piles of stock, which have been returned by
customers, are lying dumped in the offices of traders. "We are not getting
proper support from Asus for their motherboards and display cards in Thrissur.
Asus is not able to repair the motherboards and they are offering an upgraded
version of the same, which is not accepted by any reseller/customer, as the
existing processor and memory does not match with the upgraded version,"
said Gelix George, CEO, Digital world. He added that the time taken for repair
or replacement is a minimum of one month, which was also unacceptable. "A
customer cannot be made to wait for a long time because he will lose his
confidence in the trader which would adversely affect the latter's
business," George commented.

Bearing the brunt

Echoing his views Amerson, CEO, Falcon Systems, said, "If the present
scenario continues, very soon business will come to a standstill. Some sort of
support is needed from the vendor side to the traders." Claiming that the
margin from the motherboards is very thin, Amerson said that traders are forced
to courier the products for service and have to pay for the courier charge.
"When the margin received is Rs 300 to 400 for a motherboard and the
traders themselves have to pay for couriering the product to the service centers
located elsewhere in the state, the margin received becomes useless,"
Amerson added.

Commenting that the service issues are mounting day-by-day, George said,
"At times the vendors offer 60 percent cost of the motherboard as
reimbursement, which is not accepted by customer. Since all these motherboards
are purchased with three-year warranty, we cannot expect customers to accept
such action from the supplier. Finally, we have to bear the brunt of customers
who threaten to take the matter to the consumer court."

With the situation becoming worse a few traders have discontinued trading
Asus motherboards in Thrissur and surrounding places. Ranjith, CEO, KV Infotech
has stopped dealing with Asus for the past two months. "From the beginning
the service support was not up to the mark. The problem become so bad that we
feared that our trade would come to a standstill," said Ranjith.

Upgraded motherboards

The upgraded version of the motherboard is not compatible with the existing
processor hence the replacement is futile. This was a major drawback for KV
Infotech, which has huge returned stock lying around their office premises.
"Customers started returning their PCs due to which rejected stock is
mounting in our office premises. So we stopped selling Asus motherboards,"
asserted Ranjith.

According to Eldho Areeckal, General Manager, Aldous Glare, Cochin,
"Asus rules 70 percent of the motherboard market and issues like this would
be a drawback for the vendor, as dealers would not comeback to a product once
upset with it. The tolerance levels are getting shorter. Asus must intervene as
its reputation is at stake."

Asus, on the other hand, seemed unaware of the happenings in Kerala. At the
time of going to press, company officials at Asus were not available to respond
to queries.