AMD looks at Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka for growth

MUMBAI, INDIA: Confident that it has established itself well in the Indian market, chip maker AMD India is concentrating on markets like Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh to create a solid base for itself in the Asia Pacific region. “By venturing into these geographies, we can tap into additional business opportunities. Our Indian business, especially through the channel, has been doing well. Now we want to explore other countries in the subcontinent as well,” said Sandip Naik, Head—Channel Sales, AMD Far East. Pakistan is handled by AMD’s Dubai office.

In Nepal, the company has appointed Neoteric Infomatique as its national distributor. In the last two quarters its business in Nepal has already doubled. This is also because the company started with a very small base of products. “We started our business in this country with 130 units per month and today it has gone up to 4000 units monthly,” informed Naik.

AMD has also appointed a regional distributor – Axis Technologies – to seed the market there and identify core channel partners it can work with. “Systems integrators, who are our target customers, are more comfortable working with regional distributors like Axis, as they can get flexible credit terms and personalized services. This is why we are concentrating on working with just a couple of such partners,” Naik stated.

In Sri Lanka, AMD has signed up PC House as its regional distributor who can avail of the services of the local Ingram Micro representative as well, to fulfill orders. “We first need to create the right environment to excite partners before we add to numbers to our channel network there,” said Naik. But the business has not gone ahead as expected by Naik, because of the conflict between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan army, which has disrupted normal life in the country.

In Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, AMD anticipates good business from the government. However, business in Bangladesh has been sporadic since the past two quarters that is started business in. Its Sri Lankan business, which it ventured into in the last quarter, too has been affected because of the ongoing political strife in the country.

“Barring the political scenario in these regions, I have very high hopes from them because there is a growing demand for computing products there,” said Naik. However, he admitted that there were challenges in working in these geographies as well, especially with the local laws regarding customs clearance and ease of making payments.

Currently, India contributes roughly 30 percent to AMD’s APAC business. With the addition of these new geographies, Naik hopes to up this number higher in the next couple of years.