European computer vendor Fujitsu-Siemens Computers (FSC) continued its drive into the Middle Eastern Information Technology (IT) market with an overall growth of 53 percent in 2002, recording the biggest gains in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
The gains were spread across product lines, including desktops, mobile units and servers. The most impressive growth of 92 percent was witnessed in the server segment, the highest among all leading competing vendors, according to recent market research figures supplied by International Data Corporation (IDC).
Despite the fact that FSC entered the Middle East market just over two years ago, the company managed to remain among the top six IT players in the region. The results were boosted by the formidable performance in the fourth quarter of 2002, recording an overall growth of 52.2 percent over the correspondent quarter of 2001.
“FSC outperformed the established players by a huge margin through an aggressive marketing strategy that got the edge because of our industry-leading products,” said Dirk de Waegeneire, FSC vice president International Sales.
“We recorded the third highest growth rate among all IT vendors across the product line in the whole region, a remarkable achievement within such a short time of entering the market.” The final quarter of 2002 saw FSC outshining the top four players in the regional market, all of whom showed a negative growth, against FSC's growth of 52.2 percent over the corresponding quarter.
In the UAE, FSC recorded overall growth of 239 percent, outperforming the existing players several times, substantially increasing its market share, compared to the previous year, and rising to be the fourth largest IT vendor. Product-wise, FSC recorded a growth of 345 percent in mobile products, 228 percent in servers and 201 percent in desktops.
In Saudi Arabia too, FSC growth track was impressive, according to the international market figures. The overall sales increase recorded by FSC in the Kingdom was 158 percent. The highest increase was recorded for mobile products (320 percent), followed by servers (158 percent) and desktops (108 percent).
“We are extremely delighted with our performance in the key territories of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, which are the real barometers of the regional market and hold out a great promise for achieving better results in 2003,” added De Waegeneire.
“Our aggressive strategies put recently into practice were highly successful, leading to substantial gains across our product line in the final quarter of 2002,” said De Waegeneire. “It helped us to end the year on an exciting note and begin the new one with a stronger determination to perform better.”
FSC serves the needs of large corporations, small- to medium-sized enterprises and consumers the company operates in all key markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
