ASUS makes strong comeback to Sri Lankan market

Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Director Operations and CPM – Sri Lanka, Rajeev Chaudhari outlines plans for ASUS operations in Sri Lanka

ASUS launched in Sri Lanka recently. Is it because you see potential in the Lankan market?

Director Operations and CPM – Sri Lanka Rajeev Chaudhari

Of course. ASUS has been a leading brand in Sri Lanka for products like Motherboards, VGA cards, optical drives, LCD monitors with a large market share a few years ago. We hope to reach this status again with the re-launch in June with some new and exciting products in Notebook category.

How do you propose entering the local market?

We pioneered the ultraportable laptop market with many of our groundbreaking products, and we have exciting plans to continue introducing sexy new products that are reliable and affordable to the Lankan market in the coming months. With the Sri Lankan Government’s plan to increase IT literacy in Sri Lanka up to 75% by 2016, portable-computing devices will definitely play a big role in this endeavour. We are also more than just a computer brand – with successful diversification into the Tablet and Phablet with EPAD range, well accepted our Zenphone range in smartphone segment worldwide, we are confident, we will be very well received in the Lankan market too. We are already in the top 5 PC brand in Sri Lanka in Q2’14 as per latest IDC report and plan to keep rising.

Price-wise, are ASUS products being competitive?

Definitely. ASUS prides itself in providing affordable devices to our customers around the world with the best features and great user experience, and will do so in Sri Lanka as well. Our Transformer Book T100 with is tablet plus laptop with detachable keyboard starts at an affordable price of Rs. 65,500, which I’m confident will work very well for the Lankan market.

How does ASUS compare to its competitors within the local market?

Our customer comes back to us because our products offer them a lot of freedom in their day-to-day life, and enables them to be more productive in whatever they do. Whether it’s a busy working professional on the go, or a student – we have a product to fulfill each of their requirements. We don’t consider Transformer book just a computer but a lifestyle choice.

What new products do you have lined up in the next 12 months?

We launched the Fonepad 7 Dual SIM tablet, expanding our Fonepad 7 voice-calling tablet family in India as well as in the global market earlier this year and have plans to bring this product to Sri Lanka soon. This device with voice is powered by the Intel ‘Clover Trail’ Atom Z2520 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB RAM, 3910 mAH Li-polymer battery and runs on Andriod Jelly Bean 4.3. It also offers 8 GB in-built storage, a 64 GB via micro SD card, 7” screen size having 1280x800 IPS HD display with a 178-degree viewing angle as well as a 5MP rear camera and a 1.2MP front camera. Three more models of our EPAD range with different colours are being launched in Sri Lanka very soon.

What’s in store for ASUS on a global level in the future? Where is the company headed?

As one of the world’s top-three consumer notebook vendors, we strive to design and manufacture products that perfectly meet the needs of today’s digital home and office. Our current portfolio includes motherboards, graphics cards, optical drives, displays, desktop and all-in-one PCs, notebooks, netbooks, servers, multimedia devices, wireless solutions, networking devices, tablets and smartphones. Driven by innovation and committed to quality, ASUS won 4,256 awards, and revenue of approximately $ 14 billion. Our 12,500 employees including our world-class research and developments engineers around the world are committed to making our consumers’ lives better through innovation.