JEDDAH, 12 February 2004 — In the highly competitive IT hardware market, Fujitsu Siemens have cut something of a dash with their latest sales figures.
In the Europe and Middle East and Africa region, the sale of computers has exceeded the main market by clocking 27.3 percent growth.
The average market growth was 19.7 percent, according to preliminary data released by analyst research firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
The Middle East and Africa recorded a 26.1 percent growth in overall PC sales, with Egypt and Saudi Arabia among key performers.
The company outperformed the market in all categories — desktop, mobile PCs, Intel Architecture servers and overall composite PC market, with the highest growth of 87.5 percent recorded in Notebooks.
In the overall PC market, the key markets of Egypt and Saudi Arabia figure prominently among the countries that beat the market growth, having gone into double-digits.
The overall year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2003, in Saudi Arabia was 528.9 percent and 53.4 percent in Egypt.
Jacquie Carson, marketing & communications director, Fujitsu Siemens Computers put the impressive growth down to significant investment in “demand generation” and brand enhancement during 2003.
“We invested heavily in educational and training activities with the sales and technical staff of our partners throughout the region in a series of workshops and seminars. We also gave strong priority to developing local resources to consolidate our market position,” she said.
Ms Carson said that the emphasis during the campaign was on the cutting edge technology that makes the company’s products among the most advanced in the market.
“We are particularly pleased with the outstanding results we have achieved in the key markets of Saudi Arabia and Egypt.” She sees the success in these markets as an indicator pf better future performance in the rest of the Middle East and North Africa.
The growth in this region, she thinks, is helped by an IT-friendly environment in most countries with the governments themselves leading the drive for automation and helped by private companies eager to deploy more advanced IT systems.
In product terms, the fourth quarter year-on-year sales increase of 27.3 percent was represented by 12.6 percent growth in desktops, 87.5 percent in Notebooks and 25.6 percent in Intel Architecture servers. The overall growth was the third highest among all players.
For the calendar year 2003, the overall sales increase across all product categories of FSC rose by 13.9 percent, with Notebooks accounting for 73.4 percent, servers 28.2 percent and desktops 0.5 percent, according to IDC figures.
In Germany, Fujitsu Siemens Computers retained the No. 1 position, with an 18.4 percent market share in the overall PC market.
Additionally, the company maintained its leading position in the desktop segment, outperforming mobile PC and IA server markets.
