Indian electronics users more ambitious now, influx of demand from tier II, III cities says Arnold Su

One of the largest markets globally, the electronics industry in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.4 per cent between 2012 and 2020. In the next four years alone, the market in India is expected to reach $400 bn. Tapping into this huge market, ASUS India PC & ROG Head, Arnold Su, in a conversation with Indian Retailer, shares how the ecommerce marketplace is helping electronics market, why ASUS is becoming popular in tier II and tier III cities and what’s their go-to expansion strategies. Excerpts:

It’s not possible to talk about electronics market in India without talking about ecommerce marketplace disruption in the electronics industry.Huge discounts and seasonal offers are luring people to buy these products online. How has this impacted your brand?

The growth of e-commerce and online marketplaces has positively influenced the outreach, accessibility, and visibility of our products. With the rise of the marketplace, we have grown beyond the traditional channels of marketing and sales. Since the platforms are extremely popular with the tech-savvy and digitally active crowd, we have gained higher traction by tapping into these mediums.

With most millennials buying laptops and mobile phones online, what have been your strategies to tap online consumers?

In order to tap into these consumers, we have to understand their behaviour patterns and preferences. Thus, the features in the design of our products are aimed to reach out to this consumer base. Furthermore, we are present in e-commerce platforms that are extremely popular with the millennial crowd. By participating in online sales that are followed as a rage amongst this user base, we have been able to better tap into this growing demographic. Also, our offline ASUS Exclusive Stores and ROG Stores enhance user experience. These stores have been a hit with passionate gamers who are mostly millennials.  

But how is the current market for electronics industry? What growth opportunities do you see in India?

India as an electronics market has immense potential; however PC penetration in India is below 10 per cent. Due to growing importance to digitisation and development of smart cities, there seems to be good opportunities. We are determined to tap this brimming market potential.

How has the year been so far for ASUS?

The year so far has been really fruitful. We have witnessed a growth of 40% in comparison to 2017. We are aiming to touch a 50% growth by the year end. In addition to the rise in number, we have also bolstered our last-mile presence. This year, we have opened ASUS Exclusive Stores in cities like Vadodara and Delhi. The store launches have been complimented by new product releases.

What demand are you seeing from tier II and tier III cities?

We have observed an influx in demand from tier II and III cities. These markets are driving great business for us. We have also strengthened our investments in metropolitan cities with recent campaigns like the Zenbook campaign with our global brand ambassador, Gal Gadot. We have even focused on outdoor marketing initiatives. We will continue to focus on these market segments, while strengthening our presence in the metropolis.

What are your retail expansion strategies?

Currently, we have 100 exclusive partner stores and are looking to add 100 more by the end 2019. We are also aggressive with our ROG store expansion plans and aim to open 10 more stores by end of 2019. We have been strategically looking at expanding in both metropolitan cities and tier 2 markets. Indian users are becoming more ambitious, with increase in digitization and disposable incomes and we want to cover far-reaching customer touch-points.

And what has been your go-to strategy for offline expansion?

For offline expansion, we rely on our exclusive partner stores, a strong distributor network and large format retail stores. Currently, we have around 100 exclusive partner stores and 6,000 dealer shops. By next year, while we intend to double the number of exclusive partner stores, we also foresee a growth in our distributor network to 10,000. By the same time period, we would also be adding 7 new ROG (Republic of Gaming) stores to further enhance our share in the market for gaming laptops.