Allied Telesyn appoints Leading Edge as distributor

Asim Raina and Rajitha Saleem

NEW DELHI: Allied Telesyn International (ATI), which deals with IP networking products, will extend its reach to the eastern part of the country with the appointment of Leading Edge as its distributor for the region. "We prefer system integrators like Leading Edge over big names in the region, as they are instrumental in value addition for the company," said Allied Telesyn International (Asia) Ptv Ltd country manager Pradeep Joshi.

With this addition, ATI has increased the number of distributors to six, with two each in Delhi and Mumbai, and one each in Bangalore and Kolkata. The importance assigned by ATI to the eastern region is evident from the fact that 50 to 60 per cent of the business of the company in the Jan-Feb-March quarter has come merely from that region.

Joshi explained that ATI is following a different business model, wherein they are focusing more on the direct presence in the regions and in system integration and technical support rather than increasing the physical reach.

"The lack of expanded team is not affecting our business. We are trying to open up the direct line of business." Joshi informed that the top ATI distributors in the nation are from the second rung. They include Silicon Comnet, Chipcom, Netplace Technologies, Leading Edge and Interface Connectronics in Bangalore.

According to Joshi, ATI is losing out on the huge market in South in Hyderabad and Kerala as 90 per cent of the business comes from the Delhi region. "We are looking at creating a market pull in the southern region, and the primary aim would be to create a presence in the region." By June this year, there would be separate distributors in Hyderabad and Chennai. ATI is of the opinion that focused regional distribution with smaller retailers would be more beneficial rather than roping in big names.

ATI focuses on moving its products up the value chain and creating a technical know how in the market than the restructuring the products. It has introduced three new switching products apart from the routers that it had introduced last year.

Joshi disclosed that ATI has been growing at the rate of 30 to 40 per cent. Overall, it registered a revenue of around Rs 15 crore last year. ATI enjoys 15 per cent of the networking market in India and focuses on small and medium corporates and STPs and ISPs. But he claimed that in media convertors, ATI enjoys a market share of 75 to 80 per cent.

Surprisingly, ATI registered a very good JFM, with March providing most of their business, which is contradictory to the general IT market trends. This year, the company is targeting revenue amounting to $3 million, of which around $ 1 million is expected to come from the eastern region alone.

On his drive to increase awareness among the distributors of ATI, he said there was a lot of opportunities for the DSL products, especially Layer 3 switches, routers and media convertors, with the country taking rapid strides in optic fiberisation.