Toshiba products set to maintain Middle East business growth

During the last 12 months, Middle East sales of Toshiba mobile computers have grown a whopping 240 percent while the average increase in the industry as a whole was 70 percent.

Toshiba also remains the market leader in the Europe Middle East and Africa region with a 13 percent unit share of the sales for mobile computers, according to Dataquest, up from 12 percent at 30 June last year. Toshiba's leadership is 1.6 percent higher than its nearest competitor and higher than the mobile computer market growth.

Willem Poterman, general manager of Toshiba's Europe, Middle East, Africa Computer Marketing Division, attributed the growth in sales to a range of factors based on a new product line. "We introduced several highly successful new mobile computers in 2001 and 2002 and supported these with a highly focused marketing strategy, based on active expansion of our distribution channels," he said, addressing a press conference in Dubai.

"This strategy has involved the segmentation of the market along business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) lines, while applying application-oriented marketing. We have also introduced three-year international warranty on all products, the only manufacturer to do so in this region."

This theme was taken up by Ahmed Khalil, Toshiba Computer Systems' Middle East sales and marketing manager. "We have been innovative and adventurous in our approach to the marketing of what we knew would be the sure-fire success of our new range of mobile computers.

"A key factor has been the shortening of the supply chain by sourcing products direct from Toshiba's factory in Germany for entry into the Middle East region," said Ahmed. "We have also appointed new distributors in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which have strengthened our presence in the nine-country Middle East market."

Worldwide sales of mobile computers are expanding very rapidly, says Toshiba. The key is the concept of 'anytime, anywhere communications' brought about by the convergence of computing and telecommunications through wireless technology. Such forces are creating new ways of working for the business user and new options for entertainment, says Willem Poterman.

The past two years have witnessed great results for Toshiba in the Middle East and to continue its rate of market share growth the company unveiled further initiatives. "We will expand our operations in countries such as Qatar and Bahrain while continuing to strengthen our presence in other markets, " said Ahmed Khalil.

"We plan to introduce a Toshiba Computer Systems website for the Middle East division, as well as to localise Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) applications and to introduce the Tablet PC in conjunction with Microsoft."

Toshiba will launch other new products to the region, with the venue for the introduction of these being Gitex, to be held in Dubai from 13 to 17 October. Among the new Toshiba offerings bound to garner great interest at this show will be entry-level Satellite notebooks at budget prices, and solution offerings for the education sector.

Toshiba will also launch its first high-end notebook with the newest graphics chip available, which features a brand new optical disc technology. In addition, a new notebook with 2.0 GHz mobile Pentium 4 processor will attract considerable interest for the mobile professional. The company will also expand its PDA market with the inclusion of a new entry-level model.

"The advent of wireless technology adds a whole new dimension to the mobile computing market," added Willem Poterman. "Toshiba is set to own that space.

"We are inviting the user to imagine a lifestyle where everyone shares ideas and learning anywhere, anytime using a combination of portable products and global wireless technology. This has been our vision since Toshiba introduced the first notebook in 1985."

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