Success in Indian market for IT players depends on many factors. Indian consumers are very sensitive as they now prefer to buy high quality products from the brand which has excellent repot in the market. RAPOO, a global leader has already made their way across various market by gaining great repot among Indian consumers. RAPOO is dedicated to offering excellent, cutting-edge wireless peripheral products to users. This year company also introduced gaming products for India under brand ‘VPRO’. Mukesh Chaudhary, Country Head-India, SAARC & ME, RAPOO Technologies India Pvt. Ltd summaries current market growth in India and reveals upcoming channel plans.
DT: What have been the crucial milestones of your company during year 2017?
Mr. Mukesh: In 2017, a major milestone that we’ve achieved is that we’ve increased our market share from 5% to 8%.Also, we’ve sold more than 1 Million wireless combo products.We’ve also decided to focus more on Gaming Accessories and in the beginning of 2018, we launched our Gaming Accessories brand called VPRO. Under the VPRO gaming brand, we will introduce Mechanical Keyboards, Gaming Keyboards and Mice combos, Gaming Mice, Gaming Headsets and Gamepads. While a few of VPRO products have already started selling in the market, in the year 2018, we have planned to introduce many new and exciting products to cater to the needs of the growing gaming community in India.
DT: What were the major challenges for your company? How do you fought those challenges?
Mr. Mukesh: Demonetisation and GST roll out did have an impact on business in first half as the buyer’s sentiment was negative. We worked closely with our partners to resolve their issues.
DT: How GST changed your business affair in year 2017? What were your preparation to adopt this biggest tax reform?
Mr. Mukesh: The second quarter, Q2 (AMJ) of 2017, was challenging but the Post GST phase was very good for us, our profitability increased and I firmly believe that GST has given a healthy boost to the PC industry. We supported our partners through this difficult period by offering reduced prices and passing on the benefits to them. With the GST rollout and the processes now majorly taken care of, we look forward to a healthy business year ahead.
DT: What's your channel strength currently in India? How do you plan to boost channel strength in year 2018?
Mr. Mukesh: We have a strong channel network. Creative Peripherals is our National Distributor in India. We also have 100 Authorized Volume Partners. Also, Rapoo products reach end users via more than 1000 Retailers & System Integrators across India. We plan to productively work with them in 2018 to grow our business. We also plan to increase our last mile channel base especially in C & D class cities in order to increase our market share. Additionally, in 2018, we also plan to engage more with Gaming partners and System Integrators to increase our presence in the Gaming Segment.
DT: How do you assure your customer excellent service support?
Mr. Mukesh: We have already 60 ASCs across India in order to give excellent service support to our customers. Apart from that we also have dedicated in-house telephonic and email support resources for our customers.
DT: Please share your current revenue and market growth rate. What is target for year 2018?
Mr. Mukesh: Our current revenue is 3.85M USD and we are targeting 5M this year. We also aim to double our market share in FY2018.
