AMD: All set to take on the giant in India

Why did AMD take this long to enter the Indian market in a big way?

India is one of the three key strategic markets identified by AMD worldwide,
besides Latin America and China. As the Indian market matures, our products with
their superior application performance are getting encouraging response from the
channels as well as consumers. We have just launched our new AMD Athlon XP
processor in India, and going by its success, we believe India is a promising
market.

How important is this market for AMD? How aggressive do you plan to get in
India in the coming months?

As mentioned already, AMD is extremely focused on the Indian market. In
keeping with our commitment to this market, we have recently set up branch
operations in India and are in the process of building and consolidating our
reseller channel across the country. We are confident of increasing our market
share.

We have also outlined a strategy that includes strengthening our distribution
network, focusing on the PC assembler segment, forming strategic alliances with
local OEMs and undertaking marketing activities to raise brand awareness.

What are the marketing plans for the coming year? What is the size of the
promotion?

AMD is in the process of enhancing its channel network. This includes
expansion in the number of resellers who are registered for the AMD Reseller
Program by promoting channel loyalty schemes such as the AMD Reseller Rewards
wherein even the smallest resellers can earn points as they sell, and can redeem
these points for prizes. As part of the channel expansion initiative, PRIYA
Ltd., who is one of India's leading distributors of computer peripherals with
direct presence across 20 cities has started selling AMD products as a master
reseller.



AMD in conjunction with its distributors is undertaking several reseller and
system integrator initiatives. These include reseller road shows and training in
multiple cities including B and C class cities.



There has been sustained direct corporate advertising support to promote the AMD
brand and this will continue. AMD will be undertaking a series of marketing
activities to create a pull for the brand both in the consumer as well as the
enterprise markets. In the near future, our communication will focus on
educating the resellers and end users about how our True Performance Initiative,
which reiterates the fact that clock speed of a CPU is not anymore relevant
measure of its performance, and that application performance is what they should
be looking for.

Can we expect to see AMD vs Intel marketing war in 2002?

The microprocessor market has always been extremely competitive. We are
focused on attaining our objective of growing our share in India. Today, we have
the highest performing processor product portfolio, which delivers the most
amazing computing experience. Coupled with our future product portfolio and our
marketing initiatives we are confident of competing effectively and growing our
market share in India.

How do you plan to break the faster-processor-better syndrome that the
market, especially the SOHO segment, has?

We intend to educate the market that over the years Megahertz had become a
proxy for processor performance but today frequency is irrelevant as a measure
for processor performance because AMD processors with their innovative
architecture outperform higher frequency competitive processors in a majority of
applications. We will communicate this through advertising and road shows, by
use of simple everyday analogies like "lets go for a walk" : When a
father takes his young kid for a walk in the park, the kid, with his shorter
legs needs longer or many strides to cover the same distance as his father
(lower performance at higher frequency). While his father with his longer legs
takes only a few steps (higher performance at lower frequency).

What is the biggest market for AMD: home or enterprise?

The "White Box" market caters mainly to the Home, SOHO and
enterprise segment. We would continue to build on our strengths in this market,
while enhancing our focus on the enterprise and government market through OEM
initiatives and our enterprise focused products such as the multiprocessing
server platforms driven by the AMD Athlon MP processors. Also, we have a great
enterprise product roadmap leading to the exciting 64-bit Hammer family of
processors.



How is AMD's Athlon positioned against P4? What USPs of Athlon would be
marketable? What are the target segments for Athlon?

AMD Athlon XP processor simply outperforms Pentium 4 by significant margins
on a vast majority of application benchmark tests, while running at lower
clockspeeds. The AMD Athlon XP processor is positioned for the performance PC
segment. The AMD Athlon XP processor features the new Quantispeed architecture
that delivers extremely high volume of work done per clock cycle. This
translates into a "quantum leap" in the real world application
performance.

How many MNCs and Indian brands have agreed to build and sell AMD-based
PCs? How many more do you expect in 2002?

Vintron Informatics and Wipro Infotech are offering AMD based systems in
India. Besides, we are in continuous discussion with other Indian OEMs.

Also, Compaq has recently announced the Compaq Presario700 AP laptop powered
by the 950 MHz AMD Duron mobile processor, in India. Besides, IBM is currently
offering an AMD Duron processor powered IBM Netvista PC model.

Assemblers still control the Indian PC market. What plans do you have to
penetrate this segment? Do you plan to build your group of genuine dealers in
line with GIDs?

We are building a strong channel network to address the PC assembler market.
Currently, we operate through three principal distributors in India —Avnet
Max, BBS Electronics, and Intraco. Our marketing plans will strongly focus on
the white box assembler market as small system integrators form a very important
part of our channel.

Will price be a decisive factor in the competition in Indian market? Do you
plan to bring down prices as regularly as Intel?

We are committed to our exciting product roadmap and aim to deliver better
price/performance advantage to our customers across the Consumer, SOHO and
Enterprise markets.

What percentage market share do you plan to capture in India by 2002?

We do not comment on regional market share or projections.