Within a year, BitDefender has given tough competition to other anti-virus vendors. It's now strengthening its footprint across B and C-class cities

What has been the impact of global meltdown on your business?
We have not witnessed any slowdown in terms of sales at the global level. Instead, we have seen at least 20 percent increase in the sales figure. However, globally we do expect the slowdown to catchup at the end of second quarter and in the beginning of third quarter. But again, AV is a necessity product and hence there will be marginal effects of the slowdown on it. There is a slump in retail sales but the online segment is booming because these days people look at buying a lot of stuff online.

Diana Stoleru Channel Manager, BitDefender Asia Pacific

Globally BitDefender's prices are very high when compared to the India market? What is the strategy behind the same?
BitDefender is only one-year old in India. Globally BitDefender prices are very high but in Indian market we are 25 percent less than the cost elsewhere. This has been done to penetrate the Indian market. We are going to enhance our presence and will invest in brand promoting exercises now. At the moment, we are selling 30,000 units of BitDefender in a month's time
in India. In terms of licenses, we will have sold more than 75,000 licenses. 80 percent of the sold licenses are being registered and we have sold 1,40,000 licenses in 40 days. Our product is being bundled by OEMs such as Wipro and HCL from the moment they came to India.

How are you going to deal with piracy in India?
We are offering our AV products at very reasonable prices and in this way helping the channel in refraining from indulging in piracy. Besides we will also educate them about the principles of using software and will also be running campaigns within the channel. We are also launching a new version of SMB solutions. By the end of 2010, we will have the technical and commercial availability of BitDefender 2010.

How has BitDefender innovated its products?
We have come up with a proprietory technology that is known as B-have. We have also inserted another feature in this model known as the 'gamer mode'. In addition, we have also made a free scan tool available on our website. Quick scan feature is now going to be there in all the products that we role out in future. This product is already online and the Beta version will be released as a full-fledged product by the end of the quarter.

Pooja Sharma
poojas@cybermedia.co.in

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