Partners sense revival despite slow festival sales

Mysore: Mysore and Mangalore partners have traditionally witnessed a jump in
sales during Dasher eve. However, this year was a bit different as
many partners in the region said sales were not very good. Only a few of
them said that the sales were better than last year. HP-Compaq and Dell
have managed to garner major mindshare in these regions.

Elaborating on the trend this /Dasher/ in Mysore and Mangalore,
Sadashiv Bhandari, CEO, Alpha Systems said, “This season was alright. I
would not say it was very good. We sold about 40 pieces of
HP-Compaq desktops/laptops. The market is reviving and we hope the OND
quarter will be better.”

In line with his view, Vadiraj Achar, CEO of Syscomp, noted, “Sales
during this season was same as last year. We sold about 20 pieces of
HP-Compaq laptops/desktops. In my view, the next quarter will be better.”

Mitesh Jain, CEO of RT Computers, said, “Compared with last year, this
season's sales was below 50 percent.”

The company deals with many brands such as LG, Sony, and is the volume
partner of Dell. “We sold about 180 desktops/laptops, Dell was the fast
moving brand. We believe the OND quarter will witness growth at par with
last year,” he added.

Arvind Singavi, CEO of Singavi Computers, also agreed that sales this
year were sluggish compared with last year. “We deal with many
brands-HP-Compaq, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Sony, and Samsung. We sold about
40 desktops/laptops during the festive season. HP Compaq was the fast
moving brand during this season.” According to him, the quarter was
sequentially better and he expects 30 percent growth next quarter.

SV Harish, CEO of Raman IT Solution, was also not enthused with the
festivity. He opined, “Our record shows the sales were not up to the
mark. It is average versus last year. We deal with
HP-Compaq, HCL and Dell. HP-Compaq and Dell were the fast moving brands
in our portfolio. We sold about 30 laptops and 20 desktops.” According
to him, the market is volatile and unpredictable; it's a wait-and-watch
situation.

Hyder Saheb, CEO of Comp Shop Infotech, also voiced the same opinion.
The company which was dealing with HP-Compaq has now started dealing
with other brands such as Lenovo. For him, the festive sales was normal
and below expectations. The company sold about 25-30 desktops/laptops.
He attributes the sluggish sales to significant section of population's
dependency on Gulf region, where the economy is in downtrend, and
absence of financial options from companies like Bajaj for buying
computers. But, he said that the quarter was good and better than the
last one.

However, not everyone was disillusioned. For some dealers the festivity
did bring in cheer. One among them was Dilip Kumar, CEO of Computer
Shoppee, who said, “This festive season was good and better than last
year. The market is certainly reviving, and our record shows that it is
10 percent better than last year.” The company deals with HP-Compaq, and
sold about 30 desktops/laptops during this season.

Concurring with the same, Sujai Monteiro, CEO of CATS, said, “The sale
was excellent and better than last year. We deal with HP, Dell and
assembled systems. We sold about 45 laptops, and more than 100 desktops.
HP was the fast moving brand. We are positive about the OND quarter.”

The festive cheer was also evident at System Needs. Gyanesh Mehta, CEO
of the company said, “The sales during the season were much better than
last year. Among our portfolio, which includes Dell, HCL and Toshiba,
Dell was the fast moving brand. We sold 20-25 laptops and 10 desktops.
We believe the OND quarter will be better with sales coming in from
students and educational institutions.”

Most of the partners in the regions have pinned their hopes on the OND
quarter. Whether the results are up to their expectations is something
we will have to wait and watch.