Western Digital recently appointed Rectron, a South African based broadline distributor to market, sell and support the vendor’s range of external retail hard drives in South Africa; an initiative likely to catapult WD to one of South Africa’s top two players in the computer storage market.
“This appointment validates our efforts and dedication to building strong relationships with all our partners, and is a reflection of our leadership in the South African distribution space,” says Elaine Wang, Rectron business manager.
Rectron will focus specifically on end-users, bolstering WD’s distribution strategy in the local retail consumer market.
“In joining with Rectron, WD will become a far more formidable player in the local consumer space,” Wang adds. “With Rectron’s customer-centric approach, WD will rapidly emerge as one of the top consumer storage brands in South Africa.”
Wang reports that Western Digital is the global leader in external storage solutions, with its product innovation and research and development (R&D) being recognised as the best in the world.
“We are pleased to be expanding our presence in South Africa with the addition of Rectron as official distributor,” says Khalid Wani, sales director of branded products iMEA for WD.
“This initiative is part of our long-term goal to broaden our brand awareness and our business activity in South Africa, with a particular focus on the consumer market. Rectron has proven its expertise in this segment working for a range of international consumer brands. We believe that their efficient sales network and aggressive management team will be a catalyst for WD’s growth in the region.”
Wang points out that besides its acknowledged strengths as a global brand name in hard disk drives, as a key player in the global consumer arena WD is a particularly formidable business partner for Rectron, as South Africa’s major distributor of components and other ICT products.
“Add to this fact that hard drives are one of the top three components that consumers are currently likely to purchase, and the enormous potential to grow the partnership between WD and Rectron becomes clear,” says Wang.
Wang explains that consumer demand for storage, which includes external and internal hard drives, has increased dramatically over the past year – and she predicts the pace isn’t about to let up any time soon.
“This is the result of demand driven by fast-growing social networks, photo sharing, recorded digital TV and many other data storage needs in the consumer segment,” she says. “South Africa is a shopping mall country and consumers go out to see the product before they purchase it, which means that packaging and price points are also very important.”
Besides hard drive sizes growing in leaps and bounds, these components are also becoming increasingly cheaper: “A few months back it was expensive to buy a 500GB HDD, and so consumers settled for 250GB,” says Wang. “Now, just a few months after this, 500GB is considered entry-level and consumers are going for the 1.0TB to 2.0TB drives. With 3.0TB now available, this perception will change shortly.”
