APC unveils new backup product

BANGALORE: APC has announced the launch of its latest UPS offering, Back-UPS ES 500 for the home and SOHO segments. The new UPS also signals the phasing of APC’s other offering in the 500 VA range, the AVR Probe.

'The Back-UPS ES 500 is designed for the rugged, harsh and fluctuating power conditions specific to India. We have reduced the price to one of the lowest in the organized sector to make it more attractive to customers to gravitate towards the branded segment when they invest in an UPS,' said Anand Iyer, Country General Manager, APC India.

The Back-UPS ES 500 has a wide voltage window from 140 to 296 VAC which, the company says, will prove useful even in the interior regions of the country, and provides a battery backup of around 22 minutes. It comes bundled with Free Power chute Personal edition software which supports most versions of Windows, along with MAC OS X. At a pre-tax price of Rs 2995, the Back UPS ES 500 comes with a two year warranty.

Speaking on the UPS market in India, Balu Pandian, Marketing Communications Director, APC, Asia Pacific said, 'India is a paradoxical market. Inspite of the power fluctuations and the fact that 50% of PCs at homes are not connected to UPSes, the UPS has still not become a mandatory purchase with the PC. We will look to change the way the market looks at UPS in the future and make it a necessary purchase with any PC. We want to make people understand that the weakest link in the PC is the UPS and any PC is only as good as the UPS at the end of the day.'

He added that any product, which offers protection as a selling point will always have to be sold the hard way. He said this was so because customers do not see any immediate tangible benefits from the investment.

The basic design of the Back-UPS ES 500 was created for markets where power fluctuations were high including Brazil and Russia. The company said that with specific market requirements worked into them they can be rolled out in these markets too.

Responding to a query on how dropping PC sales will affect the UPS market, Iyer said, 'We are not worried about the industry slowdown. There has always been periods of galloping growth and periods where there has not been much growth. Consider this with the fact that 50% of PCs still remain unconnected. Eitherways we see growth.'

APC India recorded a sales turnover of Rs 502 crore last year. The company said that it had recorded a sale of more than 200,000 UPS units since 1999, a large percentage of which was contributed by the 500 VA model.