Creative to increase its retail presence

Creative Technology is planning to increase its retail presence across the
country, by expanding its partner base from five to 27. Presently, there are
retail partners in Mumbai (five), Delhi (two) and Bangalore (one). By the end of
this quarter, Creative would have 27 retail partners in 12 cities which include,
Ahm-edabad, Bangalore, Chandi-garh, Chennai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Cochin, Kolkata,
Trivandrum, Secunderabad and Mumbai.

"The type of products Crea-tive has in its portfolio requires retail
presence and therefore, it was essential to increase the number of retail
partners. These outlets will be more like demo centers, where channels and
end-users can come and feel the products. We would be supporting them through
POPs, marketing tools, comparison charts etc. All the product cate-gories would
be displayed at these centers which includes, sound cards, speakers, digi-cams,
MP3 players among oth-ers," elaborated Rajshekhar Bhatt, Sales and
Marketing Manager (Regional Sales), Creative Technology.

The company is also look-ing at the consumer elec-tronic goods channel.
"This would be a separate channel therefore, it would take time for us to
plunge into this net-work. The consumer electro-nics goods require a separate
treatment. This year-end would be the right time. This year we are looking at
laun-ching a whole lot of pro-ducts, but no new product categories. We are
expecting a lot of upgrades to happen this year, thereby increasing sales and
mind share," he added.

Nancy Sudheer

Mumbai