Wellwin distributor for Canon products

Canon India, a growing IT peripheral and imaging products company and wholly owned subsidiary of Canon Singapore, has appointed Chennai-based Wellwin Industry as its regional distributor for South to market a host of its IT products. The official announcement came at the launch function of `Wonder Dozen' organized by Canon India in the city on Friday. Canon has launched 12 new innovative products -- Wonder Dozen - which include six bubblejet printers, four flatbed scanners and two laser printers in the market. "We are getting very aggressive in the market by launching new products, appointing regional distributors, building proper channel structure, expanding support centers and investing heavily on campaign programs," said Alok Bharadwaj, General Manager - System Products Division, Canon India Pvt Ltd.

Wellwin as a regional distributor (South) for Canon would work closely with the principal company in establishing a good channel presence here by appointing Canon Premium Partners (CPP), Canon Empowered Partners (CEP), Canon Retail Partners (CRP) and Canon Corporate Partners

(CCP).

"Canon already has a considerable channel presence in the country and we would work with them jointly to further expand this network," said S Sudhir, General Manager, Wellwin Industry Limited.

In South, the company will be appointing two to three channel partners in each city under CPP and CCP programs, besides increasing CEP number from the present 200 to 500, and CRP from the existing 6 to 18 before end of this year. Kankaria Computer Links and Universal Microsystems are the two key strategic partners for Canon in the city.

Canon has appointed three regional distributors (North, South and West India). "We have not yet finalized any name for the Eastern region," said Bharadwaj. While Tech Pacific would span the northern region operating out of Delhi, Compuage Infocom will handle West from Mumbai. Canon distributed products at national level through Redington and Tech Pacific before getting into this regional distribution concept.

"All these initiatives are aimed at achieving a top rank in IT business in the country," said Alan D Grant, Managing Director, Canon India Pvt Ltd.

The company is working towards achieving a market share of 18 percent in the printer category by June 2002, from the current level of five percent.

Canon's just-launched `Wonder Dozen' series of products are targeted at business executives, travelers, small offices, SMEs and large enterprises. The mobile and S series range of bubblejet printers are available in S600, S800, S400SP, S300, S4500 and BJC55 models. These are priced at Rs 17,995; Rs 22,995; Rs 7,995; Rs 8,995; Rs 23,995 and Rs 19,995 respectively.

The introduction of LBP-2000 and LBP-810 marks Canon's entry into the laser printer market in India. These printers are priced at Rs 59,995 and Rs 16,995 respectively and can be operated remotely with Canon's proprietary Document Printing Application and Canon Peripheral Controller Architecture.

Canon also introduced a range of new scanners which include N1240U, N640Pex, D646U and D2400 UF. These are priced at Rs 10,995, Rs 4,995, Rs 5,495 and Rs 33,995 respectively.