Motherboard Magic

Three years ago, the Indian market was a monopoly ground of importers for
motherboard. But with local manufacturers adopting aggressive market strategy,
the scenario has undergone a sea change. Now, importers and manufacturers look
upon each other as fierce competitors.

According to market feedback, Kobian India’s Mercury brand motherboard is
the fastest selling in the market, followed by Intel and Asus. Given the large
number of players in this segment, Mecury commands only 30 percent of the
marketshare, despite being the leader. With a new player entering every six
months and many dropping out just as quickly, the market always has 10 to 15
players every year.

PLAYERS IN THE SECOND SPOT

There is no conclusive contender for the No 2 position. But Intel and Asus
have been prominent for their performance and stability. Both are running
neck-to-neck in the premium segment. While Kobian has been targeting the mass
market, Intel and Asus trained their focus on the corporate and SME segment.

Buying decisions in India are largely based on price first and performance
later. Kobian has made the most of this by introducing motherboard at low price
points but with limited features. At the same time they have been maintaining
the required quality to go with the price.

In other cases where price is secondary and performance and stability is a
priority, Asus and Intel take the lead. Market  sources put Intel and Asus’s
marketshare at around 10 percent each.

Importers and manufacturers compete in motherboard business
Strengths
	Low price, wide channel and service network strengthened Mercury as a brandÂ
	Intel and Asus motherboards are known for their performance and stability

MARKET INITIATIVES

Kobian recently doubled its manufacturing capacity and now sells around 40,000
units per month across India. Asus too has gotten into the price game and
recently introduced entry level P4-based motherboards at just Rs 5,500. This is
the cheapest motherboard in the company’s stable and it is hopeful that this
product will help it achieve 20 percent by the year end.

Intel plans to launch a new series of cost effective motherboards under the
845 series with onboard graphics and sound card at around Rs 6,500.

With this initiative, it hopes to ramp-up its motherboard marketshare from
seven to 14 percent by the end of this fiscal.

Recently, networking major D-Link tied up with one of the motherboard leaders
Gigabyte to launch DigiLink motherboard. In a short span of two months the
company claims to have achieved 10 percent monthly market-share.

SCHEMES DID IT

Kobian’s success can be attributed to the efforts put in by its partners.
While innovative marketing strategies and good margins for the channel is
rudimentary in market penetration, a cut above all this is the acknowledgment of
the latter´s efforts and success.

At its first reseller meet last year, Kobian focused on celebrating the
success of its Mercury Millennium Scheme, which was introduced to resellers from
January to April this year. The scheme helped resellers accumulate points by
selling its products.

Kobian claims to have received enthusiastic responses from more than 500
resellers throughout the country for the scheme.

Over 100 resellers were awarded for their outstanding performance with prizes
like a Maruti car and Tanishq gold jewelry.

The company also held a series of roadshow at Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad,
Bangalore, Delhi, Chandighar and Lucknow. It also launched the ´Jeet-Hi-Jeet´
campaign during the roadshow. Kobian recorded about 250 enquiries and by
the end of the day they had about 100 confirmed registrations. The scheme
rewarded partners with exotic holidays, lucky draws, gifts and cash awards.

SERVICE SUPPORT IS CRUCIAL

Kobian opened service centers at Mumbai and Delhi in addition to their exisitng
set up in Bangalore, to focus on providing free service and support to the
company’s channel partners throughout India. The company invested Rs 2 crore
for these initiative.

Currently, 60 percent of Kobian’s services is done in two-day’s time, 30
percent in seven days and the remaining in 10 days period.  "If it
takes more than 15 days to repair, we replace the product," says Rohit. 

However, Kobian is working on the feasibility of instant replacement, which
will be included into its service strategy shortly.

RMA-REDUCED SERVICE CYCLE

To reduce the service turnaround time, Kobian has introduced Return Material
Authorization (RMA), a web-based software for channels. Currently its
authorized distributors are connected to this system via the Internet. This
software monitors service transactions from the distributor logging a request
for repair to Kobian shipping the product back to them. 

The new RMA system is currently restricted to monitoring the stock position
at its regional offices.  But regular supply of spares to Kobian’s branch
offices has helped distributors order the same from the nearest point. 

"This has helped them in several ways, primarily the wider reach for
channels and end users. Secondly, the availability of spares is just a
phone call away," says Sunil Sharma, MD, Kobian India. This and many more
factors has favored the popularization of Mercury as a brand in the motherboard
market.