Having firmly cemented its position as the leading gaming brand in South Africa, Asus has now set its sights on becoming the top consumer brand in the country.
And lingering just one percentage point behind HP, according to the latest Nvidia market share statistics, it’s a goal the company is confident of achieving in the very near future.
Wayne Holt and Wayne Coetzer
Wayne Coetzer, consumer business director for South Africa and SADC at Asus, explains that the popularity of Asus’ gaming products gives it an ideal platform to expose more of the consumer portfolio – such as the Zenbook range – to the market.
“The main strength of our consumer brand is gaming where we are number one in the market with a 48% market share, according to the latest update from Nvidia,” Coetzer says. “And our strategy and go to market is to leverage this strength.
“I believe gamers themselves are major influencers in their own specific spheres – look at your typical SMB and the founder is a gamer; your corporate tech guy, he’s a gamer – and that gamer can influence who and what to buy. And they often have a large network that they advise.
“So we have gone with a strategy that we have to ‘own’ the gamer,” he says. “We have to be active within the gaming community and build on the loyalty and trust we’ve established within it. That loyalty is important, and I firmly believe that we can move that loyalty in the gaming brand into other categories like Zenbook and ProArt.
“It’s all about creating that brand loyalty,” Coetzer says.
With the advent of hybrid working – and, more recently, the rapid uptake of AI – the role of the PC as we traditionally know it is rapidly evolving.
Wayne Holt, head of consumer sales at Asus South Africa, says modern lifestyles are dictating a shift in technology buying patterns. And this could be an additional arrow in Asus’ quiver in its quest to dominate the consumer space.
“We’re seeing a blurring between what’s considered commercial computing and what’s regarded as consumer computing,” Holt says. “You now have someone who is Gandalf every night, but the CEO of a company during the day. And he’s using the same device in both scenarios. People are now managing their lives on one device. They do their daily work, their gaming, their shopping, their banking – Co-pilot has become a personal companion for some – on a single device.
“So there’s a blending,” he adds. “People are living their lives digitally on one device.”
“If you’re gaming at night and have to send an email at 9.00pm, you’re not going to fire up your work PC to send it – you’ll pause your game and send it from the same device,” Holt says. “Technology is making that balancing act easier and we’re definitely seeing a cross-pollination between commercial and consumer computing.”
Any vendor who has ever dominated a sector in South Africa knows the importance of the local distribution channel – and Asus is no exception.
Holt says the channel plays a vital role in Asus’ business.
“How important is the channel to us? It’s critical,” Holt says. “South Africa is geographically very isolated, so from a product supply and availability point of view, our distributors play a crucial role in having that product for resellers, retailers, and consumers alike. We wouldn’t be able to do what they do.
“In terms of access to local stock, our distributors are absolutely critical for South Africa and SADC,” says Holt.
“In retail you can forecast and plan,” Holt continues. “The channel is about being agile, giving support on demand – and the only way to do this is through distribution.
“Geographically and logistically, with our distributors’ footprints, they give us the scale and reach to enable us to service the market properly. “And their holding of stock for us is absolutely critical.”
Coetzer concurs with his colleague on the importance of the channel.
“We work very closely with some of the big retailers,” Coetzer says. “But when you’re talking about our distributors, some of them have 7 000 active resellers. We need those smaller resellers, so the channel gets just as much of our focus and attention as our retailers.
“The channel is where we can display the breadth of our product range,” he adds. “It’s a massive network. We fully recognise its importance and work closely with our distributors to ensure we play our role in it too.
“You need that close relationship with your distributors, that trust,” says Coetzer. “Knowing they’ll take the right position on stock and that those smaller resellers – even though they might only be buying in ones and twos – have availability straight away.
“Without the channel, I don’t think we’d be in the position we currently are in terms of market share or going from simply a household name in gaming to being first choice,” Coetzer says.
There are numerous reasons for the current success of Asus consumer products in the market – from the sleek, stylish designs of the Zenbook to the sheer power of their gaming rigs – but an aspect that is often overlooked is the company’s warranty and service offerings.
“Our services and warranties are a key differentiator for us and something we continually focus on,” says Holt. “The majority of our products are manufactured to military specifications, so we do have a lot of confidence in the durability and reliability of our ranges.”
However, he agrees, accidents do happen.
“And if an accident does happen, then we have a new offering – Perfect Warranty,” Holt explains. “Essentially, if your computer is accidentally damaged, you get a free repair. Perfect Warranty, valued at R2 499 is a really great value proposition.
“We’re continually looking at ways to add value for our customers, especially during the tough financial times we’re all facing at present,” he says. “Our aim is to make Asus the best Rand/Spend from a value perspective in the market.”
“And Perfect Warranty is one of the ways we’re doing that,” he adds.
While Asus is undoubtedly on an upward curve in South Africa, it is also starting to extend its reach into the country’s SADC neighbours. The company is currently partnering with Mitsumi in the region.
“SADC is a priority for us, but we want to address it with a physical presence and not a remote touch,” says Holt. “We want to have a presence in the various states and that’s why we’ve partnered with Mitsumi.
“The challenge with SADC is that each country has its own unique challenges and opportunities,” he continues. “Botswana has become very tough in recent months; in Zimbabwe it’s difficult to collect payment; we have close historical ties with Namibia, but it’s a market under pressure; Angola is still very Portuguese so there’s communication problems – plus it’s difficult getting money out of the country; in Zambia there is a massive grey market threat.
“Having said that, though, I do believe that a lot of the problems can be overcome with a physical presence in those countries, the proper focus and the proper strategies,” he says.
“Closer to home – in Lesotho a eSwatini – it’s again about driving strategy for each individual country,” Holt says. “In Mauritius, we do have a physical presence, but the size of the market is limited and it is a bit of a captive market.
“Again, we have a physical presence in Madagascar and there are opportunities, but then there are also challenges with issues like French keyboards and operating systems.”
But South Africa is still its key market in the region, demonstrated by recent commitments the company has made, and its determination to be the top consumer brand in the country.
“Asus has bought the building in Bryanston that is now our head office,” says Coetzer. “So there’s a commitment from the company. We’ve also upped our staff complement in Consumer Division to 18, ranging from in-house digital marketing to sales.
“So we’re here to stay,” he says.
Holt concludes with a final message to the channel: “Our key focus is the reseller community and the critical role they play in being the last mile to the customer. We continually rework our channel programme to re-invest in our key channel partners – helping them with availability and support so that they can support their customers. We really want our partners to be brand ambassadors.
“We will continue to invest in priority stock for the channel through the current constraint challenges and we’re constantly working with them on how we can assist and drive through product to their end user customers.
“The channel continues to play a critical role for us,” Holt says. “And we will give them all the support they require.”