Channels across South India have a great JAS

This year’s JAS is not just another quarter in IT business. The fact is that channels across the market in south India, are quite upbeat about economy growth and their business forecast. In all, the worst is over and best is expected in the coming months in IT business.

Almost, for over two years, the industry had worst of its time with no major IT pur-chases happening, government orders coming to a near halt, corporate business slowdown and so on. The peak of hit hap-pened in 2001-02 and home was the only segment, giving some hope for the channels. But now, things have started to move in the right direction and the market is witnessing a month-on-month growth in business.

According to a majority of resellers, they describe JAS as a better quarter and in their words, September should be better than August and August was better than July and overall JAS is better than AMJ. There is a new lease of life in IT
busi-ness.

However, the channels’ reactions on JAS differed sligh-tly from market to market.

“No doubt, JAS is a good quarter for us in business and we have achieved our targets comfortably, set for this quarter. In fact, we have fixed our target for this year in line with industry growth and we are going well as per the projections and estimation. This quarter marked with some major orders coming from institutions and government and every month, there is an improvement in business. At the same time, while business is growing, the number of new resellers mush-rooming in the market is very high. But, this is a usual trend in business, like when there is a slowdown, the market will clean up and when it is boom-ing, new players will emerge,” said G Jayamuni Rao, Director, Sogo Computers, a leading reseller in
Bangalore.

“JAS looks very good and is giving all confidence for IT pla-yers that bright days are ahead. We have grown phenomenally in this quarter and have taken some major brands during this quarter, which helped to drive the growth. We will scale new peaks in the coming months in business,” said a leading IT reseller based out of
Chennai.

Meanwhile, another reseller R Mahesh of Ozone Computer Service in Coimbatore said, “July and August were good, while September did not live up to its expectation. Presently, this month, the business is going slow, however, there is an improvement every month and growth is gradual. We cannot deny the fact that market is gro-wing and improving, but, one needs to be smart to make it happen for them.”

On the other hand, G Srinivas of Cache Peripherals, a leading name in Secunderabad, said, “For us, July and August were not that interesting, but Septe-mber is looking fine. Till Aug-ust, we felt the sluggishness in business and this month, there is an improvement and upward movement. I am sure our economy is growing stronger and healthier and we are going to have a good time in business. However, presently, JAS and AMJ look the same for me and we expect some big orders in the next quarter. Government is the major bet for orders in channel business here.”

According to Cochin-based George Thomas, CEO, Aldous Glare Trade & Exports Pvt Ltd, “JAS is reasonably good com-pared to the previous quarter. However, there is nothing big to claim or comment, as there is no remarkable turnaround.

Business is growing slowly and steadily and although, we talk about economic revival and higher growth, it will take time to reflect on IT.”

“We had a good business in July and August and registered over 22 percent growth com-pared to the corresponding period of the previous year. Normally, we achieve 33 per-cent of the annual turnover target in JAS and government, BFSI and telecom are the major contributors for our growth. In our business, we could see the month-on-month growth from May of this year. As economy is looking up and positive, surely IT will have a great time again,” said C Sujit Singh, Country Manager, Dax Networks.

“Every month, we are grow-ing and becoming stronger in business. According to a resea-rch report, TVSE has 47 percent marketshare by value in DMPs and 44 percent marketshare in volume terms. Infact, we had the highest printer sales in the company’s history in August 2003 and the DMP market has grown 12-15 percent compared to last year,” said an official from
TVSE.

S Gopikrishna