PC Expo: Stiff Competition For Bangalore IT.com?

It is going to be bigger and better this year," promised the invite for
India PC Expo 2004. Intentions apart, turning this statement to reality would
seem quite a challenge given the state of the beleaguered IT channel community
that is still reeling from the double whammy tax hike- both sales tax as well as
entry tax. Fortunately for the organizers, dealers put aside their troubles and
focussed on the event on hand.

The second edition of this B2C exposition that allows consumers to have a
first hand look at computer consumables and hardware, was held in Bangalore from
the 7th to 10th of October. Living up to the tech savvy nature of the city, the
whole expo area in Kanteerava Indoor stadium was Wi-Fi enabled.

The organizers-Association for Information Technology (AIT) and Unique
Trade Fairs-roped in Ram Agarwal, CEO of the homegrown hardware company- Wipro
ePeripherals to inaugurate the exhibition. Speaking on the occasion, Ram said,
"This exhibition can be viewed as a parallel, that will complement the
famed BIT.com and could provide an opportunity for professionals and the common
man of the Indian Silicon Valley to get more tech savvy." 

Lokesh Babu, MD of Unique Trade Fairs said that the Expo attracted around
58,000 visitors this year compared to 28,000 in 2003. While the total number of
stalls taken was the same as last year, participants like Intel, Samsung and AMD
took larger floor spaces.

There was also a wider gamut of products on display. "While last year
saw mostly PCs, printers, scanners and peripherals, in 2004 we had a larger
product category that included bluetooth products, mobile accessories, plasma
TVs, projectors, PDAs, palmhelds, storage media devices, networking products and
demonstration of Wi-Fi," said Lokesh.

WeP Peripherals' CEO, Ram Agarwal, inaugurated the event by lighting the traditional lamp. the He is flanked by AIT members. The D-Link stall was one of the most popular, drawing visitors curious about Wi-Fi

Some of the brands that were showcased at the event were D-Link, Frontech,
Microsoft, TVS Electronics, HP, AMD, Intel, HCL, IBM, APC, Samsung, Airtel and
many others. Computer training schools including Indian Institute of Hardware
Training (IIHT), Animaster and Maya Academy for Advanced Cinematics were
conspicuously popular with students.

HI-TECH EXPO

One of the main attractions at the expo, was that the whole exhibition area
had been Wi-fi enabled, courtesy D-Link. Any user armed with a Centrino-based
laptop would be able to get a first-hand feel of wireless Internet connectivity.

Judging from initial responses, dealers were pleased with the consumer
response to the Expo. "99.9% of the exhibitors are happy since many
bookings have taken place. Many dealers informed that there were a lot of
serious enquiries from genuine buyers who do not like to take instant buying
decisions. They find it useful to compare features, check the pricing and terms
of payment directly with the dealer," said Lokesh.

WIDE RANGE OF OFFERINGS

While the main thrust of the Expo was to expose the consumer to the various
products, some distributors used the opportunity to strike deals or
partnerships. Faxtel, which is the national disty for Panasonic products, is
introducing blue tooth cordless communication products from Jabra later this
year. Mansoor Ahmed, Area Sales Manager for Faxtel, said that the expo was a
good avenue to test and try the market. Spurred by the favorable reaction from
consumers, he plans to formally launch Jabra in India during the BIT.COM.

A bird's eye view of the various stalls at the event Most visitors were serious buyers who were technically knowledgeable and knew exactly what they wanted

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) introduced a new product- a solar powered
mobile charger, which attracted a lot of attention at the event. Others like
Simmtronics Semiconductors felt that the PC Expo was a good forum to raise
awareness among the public about their brand. "We face a lot of piracy
issues and want consumers to be aware of the products they are buying,"
said Rishiraj Jaitly, the company's Marketing Manager.

Brand-building was also on the agenda. "We are here just to promote the
D-Link brand. We are not worried about how much sales we will generate,"
said Anant Chaturvedi, Territory Manager, Digi Giga Systems.

Besides visiting the stalls and checking out the products on display,
consumers could also chance their luck at daily raffles. The daily prizes
include VCD and DVD players while the bumper prize winner, announced by Kannada
cine actor Vishnu Vardhan, took home a brand new PC.

DEALERS HAPPY

AIT's Secretary R Sridhar claimed that participants were happy with the fair.
Samsung managed to sell around 50 TFT monitors thanks to the PC Expo. Krithicom
also bagged around 12 orders at the fair.

FUTURE PLANS

Following the good response to PC Expo in 2003, Unique Trade Fairs toyed
with the idea of taking the event to other cities like Chennai and Hyderabad.
However, this did not take off as IT dealer associations in those cities did not
wish to be affiliated with the Expo.

"For an exhibition to be successful, it is important to have tie-ups
with associations. It could be that Bangalore is different since it has a good
customer base for computer products and software in the whole of south India,
" reckons Lokesh.

However, he has huge plans to take the Expo global. "We want to make it
a B2B international event. We will be talking to organizers of Computex, which
conducts the second largest computer event in the world."

Around eight outstation participants from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kerala
took part in the Expo this year. Sridhar hopes to take the Expo upcountry. Most
likely, it will have similar exhibitions in B- and C-class cities like Mysore,
Hubli and Mangalore soon.

After its second successive run, PC Expo has become a staple annual feature
for Karnataka's IT hardware dealers, vendors and consumers. One hopes that it
reaches the league of its more famous cousin BIT.COM.

PRIYA SREENIVASAN

CyberMedia News Service

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