How MSI plans to dominate the South African hardware market

On 13 May 2016 we had the opportunity to fly down to the Mweb MCave for the MSI Vortex and DOOM launch event.

Besides getting to play an awesome new game on some of the world’s best hardware, it also gave us an opportunity to talk to some of the biggest names in the South African Gaming community.

One such person was Keith Voges, National Sales Executive and Business Developer for MSI South Africa.

How did an event like this come about?

Ster Kinekor and MSI Notebooks have a mutual vision for Gaming in South Africa and our MSI Vortex/Doom partnership came about during a conversation between our Head of Marketing and their Product Manager.

Visions were shared, ideas were brainstormed and a spittled handshake sealed the deal. It goes without saying that you should watch this space!

Where do you see the South African hardware market heading?

South African hardware market is on-trend with international markets, albeit with a slight delay in launching locally.

So it is expanding and, especially with our growing middle-class, the demand is increasing. Gaming hardware is enjoying the same upward trend locally and that demand is furthermore spurred on by non-gamer professionals requiring high-performance gaming laptops.

Designers, engineers, architects, video-rendering companies and even stock traders require our MSI Notebook gear.

To supply the growing demand, we have expanded our range of laptops from the Gaming & Classic to the Prestige (business execs, designers & photographers) and Worksations (for engineers, Computer-aided design and modelling, architects etc.)

How do economic factors (like the interest rate) affect local hardware prices?

For some it’s going to be a rough year ahead. Year-on-year we have already seen hardware prices increase by some 20% give or take and this is purely down to Dollar/Rand rate of exchange.

The Rand is highly volatile at the moment – more so than other emerging economies – and this will inflate the selling prices in South Africa. This is due to a combination of international market trends and then also local governance issues that make ZA not the most attractive investment offering in the financial markets at the moment.

We have noticed that in the market our users are starting to by less Nvidia 980M laptops and rather selecting the 960M’s or 970M’s. However saying that, the demand for the latest Nvidia 1070M & 1080M’s is quite monstrous at the moment.

You’ve got to be awake and on your toes in a market like this. Anything can and will happen!

Taking into account all these factors, how does MSI plan to dominate the hardware market going forward?

It is important to understand that MSI Notebooks focus purely on the higher end of the laptop performance spectrum.

Our competitive advantage has been purposefully sculpted to focus all our research & development and innovation to the high-performance end of the market. Our primary goal and mulish drive is to be the premier high-performance & gaming notebook brand in South Africa.

In this market, higher-end products will have a greater challenge as consumer spending habits start shifting slightly.

This is why we will spend even more time on our product education this year. We know buying hardware is an expensive exercise these days, so we want to ensure we inform the customer what the benefits are and the mad hardware and features they get.

What we pack under the bonnet is consistently the better option. What we sometimes find is that buyers will compare the 4 main specs (Mem, CPU, GPU, HDD) between our laptop and our competitors and then not happy because we are 5-10% more expensive.

Comparing apples with apples is critical in this decision-making process.

We need to educate the consumer that our tech is premium, and with that it carries a huge intrinsic value.For example, our MXM feature allows you to upgrade your graphics card to future generations, our laptops are by far the lowest faulty rate in South Africa and internationally, our products use higher quality SSDs, no U-type Intel CPUs, superior audio hardware and the best network management, and we’re always first-to-market with the latest technology.

I’m hoping to see a concept store in major cities up-and-running soon to expose ourselves to a wider urban audience. It’s critical that the South African consumers knows MSI and that we are one of the best laptop brands in the world right now.

Less than 1% of South Africans know who MSI is! Some of my friends still don’t know who I work for! My grandmother has serious concern!

Brand awareness and education will be the name of the game.