Impressed by the huge potential of the Indian market, Taiwan-based A-Data Technology and Malaysia's PenDrive are looking forward to establish a distribution model in the Indian region. “India holds huge potential for a company like ours. We will be entering this market with a distribution-focused strategy and are looking for national or region player with a good technology background,” informed Mark Chen, Deputy Manager-Marketing Planning, A-Data Technology. 

Opting to go for the distribution based channel model, both these companies are targeting the Indian market for its sheer size. With the activity in the Indian market fast moving beyond the metros, suddenly targeting the Indian region has become an essential part of the strategy for a lot of Asian vendors.

Expanding its footing in a phased manner, A-Data is looking at putting in place dealers and system integration partners as well. “We know that India is a special market. A lot of our products would need proper localization. So we need to have right kind of partners in distribution and systems integration to do this,” Chen added.

Thinking on the similar lines, PenDrive, a subsidiary of Index Diversified, is also looking at having its distribution focused India strategy in place. “We have done pretty well in Malaysia and are partnering with companies like Nikon, HP, Canon and Kodak. India is a huge market for our products, so we would be looking at having a distribution focused approach to target this geography,” explained, CH Low, MD-Index Diversified Sdn Bhd.

Targeting different marketing segments in the country in a phased manner, PenDrive is looking at putting four different channels in place. “Initially, we are looking at a national distributor who can distribute our USB flash drives, flash memory cards and other digital data storage products. Moving forward we would like to have four channels in – IT, photo, mobile and stationary segments - within the country,” he added.

Presently, the company has two distributors in IT and one each in photo, mobile and stationary within the Malaysian region. It is also planning to take its products to Middle East and African regions as well.

With the government of India encouraging the push of IT deep into the non-metro cities, the number of PCs and mobiles being sold in the region are reaching newer heights day-by-day. Besides this, the creation of an overall IT ecosystem is attracting companies like A-Data or PenDrive to venture into this market. 

“India is one of the fastest growing markets now, we simply cannot ignore this geography. We want to be here to create a brand image for ourselves. And today, there are right conditions for us to position our brand in this region. This is possible because of the overall IT ecosystem being formed in this region,” informed Low from Index Diversified. 

“India is already a big name in terms of software. We have good hardware capabilities in Taiwan, so now a lot of Taiwanese companies look up to India to get the overall advantage. Moving forward a good ecosystem of hardware and software would be developed in this region,” added Chen.

Moved by the India advantage, A-Data is already contemplating to have its own India operations soon. “We understand that you need to be closer to your customers, so as we focus towards this geography, we need to have our own presence. In fact, we are looking for right kind of people to have our own office in this region,” Mark added. 

A-Data has products like DRAM module, flash disk and flash card. PenDrive's portfolio includes USB flash drives, flash memory cards and other digital storage products.

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