Growth & Expansion-new strategies for PLDS in 2015

VARINDIA catches up with Lear Wu, Global Head - Channel Sales, PLDS to understand more about its India operations and the positioning of both its LiteOn (post its launch in India in early 2015) and Plextor SSDs in the domestic market vis-a-vis the presence of other major players in this space -

How is PLDS positioned in the Indian peripheral market today with respect to its ODD (Optical Disc Drive) product portfolio?

The ODD market in India is self consolidated owing to the presence of a few players. LiteOn with its complete range of laptop, internal and external ODD, enjoys a market share of 30% with a growth plan to capture 50% market share by December 2015. With a turnover of USD 10mn in FY 2014, PLDS plans to continue the same growth rate of 25% YOY for FY 2015 too.

With a strong focus on quality control, R&D and user experience, LiteOn ODDs enjoy the industry’s lowest failure rate. Owing to such high quality measures LiteOn has the SWAP warranty for its ODD where the channel replaces the faulty product over the counter for maximum customer satisfaction.

How do you position both LiteOn and Plextor SSDs in the market? What are your market expectations for the launch of LiteOn SSDs in India market in early 2015?

Plextor offers the complete range of SSDs catering to all verticals including PC, Server, Gaming, Data center, Automobile as well as the Mobile industry. Plextor SSDs with the industry’s best components, customised firmware PlexTurbo, rigid testing facilities leading to lowest failure rates and extensive R&D enjoy a premium positioning in the Indian Market. The focus is to provide the best user experience and a 10 times faster reading and writing speeds compared to the other competing brands.

With the introduction of LiteOn SSDs, we wish to expand our LiteOn portfolio while leveraging the brand as well as the technology and expertise. The SSD market in India is still at a very nascent stage. We believe that in the beginning Q3 2015, major laptop and PC brands would adopt SSDs on a much wider base thereby giving a boost to the SSD sales. We expect the LiteOn SSDs to contribute significantly towards the growth as the industry itself will grow multi-fold in the coming years.

LiteOn internal and external range of ODD is distributed by two leading National Distributors - Neoteric Infomatique and Compuage India. The internal slim ODD for laptop is distributed by Rx Infotech. The distributors enjoy a wide reach across the country with their strength in the tier II and III class cities which enjoy the maximum growth potential. Plextor SSDs are distributed through Prime ABGB based out of Mumbai. Currently we have a wide channel base of over 1000 partners across India.

In India, LiteOn will launch all the SSD form factors right from MSATA, 2.5”, PCIE as well as the M.2 which will cater to all the verticals right from PC client, Gaming,  Enterprise and industrial PC. Having appointed Neoteric Infomatique as the national distributor currently, we will be leveraging on their wide channel reach across the country. Apart from the traditional channel, LiteOn SSDs will also be present in the LFR and traditional retailer shelves owing to the demand from consumers directly at a later stage.

LiteOn will also launch channel schemes ensuring healthy margins for the channel partners with greater focus on corporate SI and corporate customers. In a market scenario where every player is vying to be ‘cost-effective’ our objective is to establish LiteOn as the Technology Leader in the SSD category.

Globally, the Optical Storage market is witnessing a YOY de-growth of 20% as newer, cheaper and better storage devices are being innovated. As far as the Indian market is concerned, there is a de-growth but even then LiteOn has witnessed a 25% YOY growth due to the presence of just 2 major players in the market.

The demand for ODD is driven by the Government sector, SOHO vertical as well as the growing ultra-books without the presence of internal ODD as well as the 9.0 mm slim internal ODD used in for thin PC Client. With its extensive R&D team of 300 people LiteOn keeps bringing in slimmer and lighter optical drives to meet the demand of leading PC and laptop manufacturers.

Our national distributors Neoteric Infomatique and Compuage India have a wide spread reach across India especially in the tier II and tier III markets. Leveraging on their strength, PLDS has developed a strong base with over 1000 channel partners in their network.

For the next level of growth PLDS for the FY 2015 is going to focus on growth and spread from the top 8 metro cities in India backed by Channel schemes for mutual growth of all parties involved.