Seagate to appoint more national distis

Nelson Johny Mumbai, Nov 28

After breaking off ties with eSys, Seagate is in the process of
appointing a third national distributor in the country. According to sources,
Seagate has been aggressively evaluating many sub-distributors in the country to
give distribution rights of Seagate hard disk drive. And the grapevine is that
Seagate has finalized Kolkata-based Supertron Electronics and New Delhi-based
Fortune Marketing as the third and fourth national distributors. Ingram Micro
and Redington are the other two distributors for Seagate products. Market
sources also claimed that Mumbai-based Neoteric was also in the list of
distributors that were evaluated.

When contacted Rajesh Khurana, Country Manager, Seagate refused
to comment on the issue and just said, "It is true that we are evaluating
many companies, but would not like to comment on this topic now."

Both Supertron and Fortune have been sub-distributors of Seagate
for a long time now. Superton Electronics with an agency revenue of Rs 165 crore
in the year 2005-06 has grown 19 percent and is a strong contender to become a
national player. At the same time Fortune Marketing, though not as big as
Supertron, has been an active player for Seagate since the last many years.

VK Bhandari, Founder and MD, Supertron Electronics when
contacted refused to provide any information on this news. 

"I would not
like to discuss any distribution related queries at the moment," he said.
Manoj Gupta of Fortune Marketing also refused to comment on the appointment.
"I would not like to deny or confirm this news," he said.