ASBIS Bulgaria Added 2 Top Mobile PC Brands to Its Portfolio
Infoweek.bg, 10 March 2008
ASBIS Bulgaria took another decisive step. After announcing the distribution contract with Acer, now the company revealed to the press its partnership with Dell. The brands are ranked respectively 3rd and 2nd on the global mobile PC market.
“In the last few years we were “missing” the business with mobile computers. I even believe we were a little late with this step. But we are very pleased that 2 of the top 3 companies chose to work with us. With those two brands our ambitions grow more and more,” commented Mitko Topalov (on the photo), ASBIS' regional director for Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Macedonia.
He added that in Western Europe the market observes a drop in the market for desktop components. This is not happening in the markets of Eastern Europe, but the growth of desktop systems is about 10-15% a year, while the mobile market grows by about 100%. The trends show that the SMB segment of the market is set to grow, and the user preferences are turning towards mobile offers.
The contracts with the two vendors are local. Beside Bulgaria, ASBIS Group distributes the products of Dell in Turkey, Russia, and the Arabian Peninsula, while Acer in Belarus.
“The simultaneous offer of the two top brands will allow ASBIS BG to cover the whole market,” says Iskren Petrichev, Dell product manager at ASBIS Bulgaria. He believes it would not be an obstacle to the sales of each of the brands, since the two vendors have different messages for the market – Acer is a supplier of quality for all, while Dell aims at creating a category of its own.
The representatives of the distributor assured that there will be no conflict of interest between retail chains and the company’s dealers. For the latter, ASBIS will deliver Dell's Vostro product line, which is oriented primarily toward the SMB market and will not be offered in the retail chains.
The year 2007 was extremely successful for ASBIS Bulgaria. Without a strong mobile PC line in its portfolio, the company reported 42% growth in sales. For the current year 2008 the distributor plans a turnover of $50 million, as compared to the achieved $28 million in 2007, and for 2009 the turnover is planned to be $60 million.
View the original article in Bulgarian (PDF, 84KB)