SES Tech to launch AOpen products in India

Gopi Krishna

CHENNAI: Mumbai-based SES Technologies Ltd., has tied up with Taiwan-based AOpen for its range of optical drive products. SES, which claims to be the first authorized distributor for AOpen in India, would be launching the products initially in South India, before taking it to other regions. AOpen is part of Wistron Group, which is the design and manufacturing arm of Acer Inc.

"AOpen products are superior in technology and quality, and a popular brand in the global market. With technology as the USP, SES would be betting on AOpen products in India which is also priced competitively in the market," said Subramanyam Kantheti, Regional Manager (South), SES.

"Apart from optical drives, AOpen also manufactures motherboards, portable storage devices, webcams, computer housing, network cards, modem cards, barebone systems and notebooks, to mention a few," said Kantheti. "SES will introduce more products from AOpen once it establishes AOpen brand with its optical drives in the market," he added.

The company is targeting both reseller and OEMs with AOpen and is in the process of identifying a select channel group to market the solutions. "We are aggressive on the channel front with promotional schemes and the focus is going to be more on the upcountry market," he said. The company is targeting markets such as Coimbatore, Madurai, Trichy, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Vishakapatnam, Vijayawada, Mysore, Hubli and Pondicherry.

"In the next six months, we want to capture 10 percent of the market share in optical drives," he added. SES has already tied up with Chennai-based Accel ICIM and Kochi-based Network Systems & Technologies (Nest) for OEM business. "At present, we are talking to a couple of other players based out of Chennai," Kantheti informed.

This year, SES has lined up its products under two major focus groups--volume business and value business. The main strategy is to check both topline as well as bottomline growth. The company is targeting a turnover of over Rs 350 crore from the current fiscal, as compared to Rs 258 crore it achieved last year.