MITSUMI Experiences Record Growth Year on Year Over the Past Two Decades

Satyen Choksi, the Business Unit Head at MITSUMI Distribution, says increasing partnerships with new vendors is always one of MITSUMI’s successes

Can you tell us about the PC business in the region?
In the Middle East region, the current stance has changed over the last few weeks, as we had initially been seeing a lack in supply for a prolonged period, but now the situation has changed and there is an abundance of PC supplies to meet the demand, therefore increasing business overall.

A major factor that has caused the increase in demand for PCs in today’s world is the work from home concept. Total worldwide personal computer shipments last year rose 13% to 302.6 million, according to industry tracker IDC. Here at MITSUMI, we are authorized to distribute HP and Dell products in UAE and GCC region and overall have even seen an increase in prices over time.

How has it evolved over the years?
Over the years when the pandemic hit, we have seen a drastic increase in demand due to work from home, remote education, and so on. A wave of PC buying had us hoping to see an increase in supply, and as I mentioned, have seen that a lot recently after a struggle with low supply. At MITSUMI, we are reaching our year-end and are expecting to see a major increase and growth in business in the upcoming months.

Has the culture of “work from home” added any value to the overall PC business?
Yes, as mentioned we can see an increase in buying capacity and higher consumption as most of the world has had to adapt to working from home and even learning from home as students. It is in fact one of the main causes of the surging increase in demand for PCs.

Tell us about MITSUMI’s channel community and its presence in the region?
Here at MITSUMI, our channel community is the channel and reseller partners like small and midsize businesses, government businesses, enterprise partners and customers, the gaming industry, and so on. We are always looking for new opportunities and opening offices in the GCC region as we expand and see growth in our channel community.

With our partners, brands, and offices in more countries, our channel is seeing an increase in growth and breadth. A lot of marketing initiatives have been launched to aid our channel community such as training events, new product announcements, upgrading our sales team skills, and organizing workshops in the African region for product segment enterprise updates. Furthermore, we have also recruited a new business team and are highlighting a lot of in-country logistics and invoicing to assert our presence more.

Increasing partnerships with new vendors are always one of MITSUMI’s successes which will lead us to be the number 1 distribution firm for all brands. Moreover, we will be expanding our digital and offline presence by adding the extra hype into Mitsumi’s marketing budget as we have experienced a great result by reaching our targets through our marketing presence in the Middle East and Africa. We will focus more on the new countries such as French-speaking countries (Ivory Coast, Cameroon), Nigeria, Bahrain, and Oman.

How big is the gaming industry within the PC business?
Despite the pandemic, we can see the gaming industry has not taken a fall but continues to thrive. Even when the pandemic fades, research firm IDC believes that shipments of gaming desktops, laptops, and monitors will continue to grow. As a result, IDC forecasts a rise in gaming PC shipments from 41.3 million in 2020 to 52.3 million in 2025. The one exception in the PC business has always been the gaming industry where the demand has continued to be strong consistently.

Do consumers today prefer to buy components and build their own PC, or do they opt for branded PCs?
In today’s world, buying a branded PC directly is more convenient for most people who require PCs for simple everyday usage purposes. Although there are also a certain number of customers who buy components to assemble their own PCs, the ease of buying a fully built branded one leads most people to buy PCs directly.

Tell us about your business and marketing strategies for 2022?
MITSUMI has been experiencing over 2 decades; record growth year on year, due to its strong expertise and commitment towards its customers and channel partners. Currently, we will be adding retail and e-commerce into MITSUMI’s strategy to stand out among our competitors. Strategic planning has different purposes at different levels of the organisation.

At the corporate level, the central purpose is planning for growth. At the level of the Business Unit or Division, the purpose of planning is to identify strategic opportunities for future investment. Once those business opportunities are identified in terms of the organization’s key product lines and markets served, the real planning for a sustainable competitive advantage can begin.

Alongside this, we have several marketing initiatives that have already begun and are also yet to come. From the MITSUMI Gold Partner Circle Loyalty Program to a new website update that includes e-commerce features because at MITSUMI competition is very important as it is our motivation to succeed and lead markets.

Furthermore, we will be renewing our website to ease the process for the resellers, partners, and vendors to get to know our latest updates and we will create login details for them to know our latest stock availability. This feature will also allow them to contribute to the incentive programs that have been introduced a few years ago letting them know where they stand in incentive participation.