Yesterday CPU and graphics card maker AMD held a technology summit in Johannesburg, where various international AMD big-wigs came together to discuss the company and its plans going forward. We managed to get some time in with AMD channel sales manager for South Africa, Jaco Laubscher as well as META Sales manager Rami Al Saleh, who gave us a little insight into the local operation going forward.
Twice during AMD’s keynote address, representatives announced that the company has sold over 35 million DirectX 11 graphics cards worldwide. This figure accounts for about 90% of the DX11 graphics card install base. Unfortunately, it is AMD policy to not share region specific sales data.
Al Saleh was able to give us some insight into the local situation, and stated that the company is focusing heavily on emerging markets, and has identified South Africa as a key region for development. We can say that we are aiming to double our revenue in South Africa in 2011 compared to 2010,” said Al Saleh. This will be achieved by developing better relationships with channel partners and promoting the AMD brand in SA.
Plans are already well in motion to increase the company’s local footprint. For starters, AMD is in the process of expanding its list of partners from three to eight in the next few weeks. Working closely with local distributors is part of AMD’s global Fusion Partner Program.
Discussions have already taken place with various distributors to increase AMD’s local presence, and of the five new partners, two are retailers. Our money is on Incredible Connection and BTGames, but Laubscher and Al Saleh could neither confirm nor deny this.
Core to increasing AMD’s presence will be ensuring availability of stock; an area which local channel partners will be focusing on. AMD has increased the stock expectation profile for South Africa when bringing in new products, and is aiming to develop the distribution network to a point where most PC hardware outlets or game retailers will have a wide range of AMD products in stock most of the time.
On top of this, AMD has already made plans with specific retailers to set up AMD branding in their storefronts, and one of the retailers has already confirmed 12 ‘showrooms’ across various locations around SA.
Gamers should be pleased to see AMD starting to focus and invest heavily in South Africa, especially when our PC gaming market is largely being ignored by the company’s two main competitors; Intel and Nvidia.
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