Western Digital reports remarkable growth in Middle East

"Western Digital's significant growth rates achieved in year 2001 reflect the company's increased focus on the Middle East market in both the business and the consumer sectors," said Heidi Berger, Western Digital Vice President for Marketing, Europe and the Middle East.

"Our increased marketshare is a testament to Western Digital's commitment to provide the region with a high-capacity, high-performance hard drive technology that is best-of-breed, reliable, accessible, and cost-efficient," added Berger.

Western Digital has achieved record year-to-year quarter sales increase in 2001 in the Middle East, with growth rates of 50% in Egypt, 35.9% in the UAE, and 13% in Saudi Arabia.

Foundations of Continued Growth
With a focus on presenting innovative and state-of-the-art hard drive technology - such as the introduction of WD's advanced 7200 RPM drives to the region - Western Digital enables Middle East users to take full advantage of massive personal storage for either work or leisure-related activities, such as sophisticated business applications, digital video editing, music, movies and photography.

According to a recent IDC study, Western Digital has shipped more 7200 RPM drives than any of its competitors in the first quarter of 2001, making Western Digital the market leader in the 7200 RPM category globally, and locally in the Middle East.

Moreover, Western Digital has also focused on non-PC related storage applications to further enrich the digital experience of users in the Middle East. Western Digital is one of only two providers of hard drives to Microsoft's newly launched gaming console, the X-Box, which is now available in the Middle East markets.

Western Digital's strong growth rates in the region can equally be attributed to the company's advanced technical support initiatives, such as the Web-enabled services which help users check the warranty status of their hard drives, and download diagnostic software utility to test these drives.

Moreover, Western Digital's commitment to the region has also been evidenced by its status as the only hard drive manufacturer in the world with regional offices in the Middle East.

Exceptional Channel Performance
With a strong base of world-class local channel partners in the Middle East, Western Digital has been able to achieve remarkable success in the year 2001.

With tremendous growth rates year on year, attributed to Techdata and Al Yousuf, the Pan Arab distributors, who hold 50% Western Digital marketshare for the Middle East, and with Jamjoom Advanced Technology and Nahil Comupters in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, also showing tremendous share growth to complement Western Digital's market share in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, all contributed to make 2001 a very successful year.

With the Western Digital partnership spanning more than fourteen years with North Africa Company (NAC) in Egypt, this has been the key to success and continued growth and marketshare in one of the highest growth markets.

In the UAE, Western Digital is represented by its Pan Arab distributors including Servex, Al-Yousuf Computers, and Techdata.

Sustaining Growth and Future Strategies
"Western Digital's award-winning hard drive technology and current distribution strategy are the keys to our success in the region, and we intend to leverage this strategy to increase Western Digital's share in the expanding hard-drive markets of the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and Egypt," said Rauf Baig, Regional Sales Manager of Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia.

Western Digital is now focusing on ways to maintain its growth throughout the Middle East for the current year, including a focus on new channel strategies and online customer service practices.

The company is launching a new channel initiative to further support Middle East IT distributors in the adoption and implementation of advanced hard drive technologies in their respective markets.

Western Digital's Golden Partner Program allows system integrators and sub-distributors to gain substantial benefits including: product updates, better drive testing processes, new technology email alerts, rebates, and new technology training opportunities, and marketing support.

"Based on our strong 2001 results and the increase of total available market, we are confident that by the end of year 2002, Western Digital will double its volumes in the Gulf, Middle East, and Africa region as a whole," added Baig.