“Some” Surface Sales Included in Tablet Growth Reported by SHI
“Some” Surface Sales Included in Tablet Growth Reported by SHI by UCStrategies Staff
Strong tablet growth is being experienced by Somerset, New Jersey-based SHI International’s mobile device business, and this includes some sales of Microsoft’s Surface tablets.
During Q1 and Q2 of this year, SHI International noted an 11.75 percent revenue increase, and this is a result of an important surge in mobile device sales growth. A 103 percent year-over-year jump was experienced by vendors like Samsung during Q2, and Apple reported iPad sales increases (of 64 percent) in the same period.
Sales of Microsoft Surface, and in particular its Windows 8-based Surface Pro, are also starting to be seen by SHI. SHI was one of the 10 large account reseller (LAR) partners chosen by Microsoft to act as the first authorized surface resellers under the new Microsoft Devices Program.
The director of marketing at SHI, Ed McNamara, said: “We've made some Surface sales since becoming authorized. It's too early to say what kind of impact it's going to have because we only recently began selling them, but we think there are a lot of customers that are very interested in the devices.”
McNamara commented that there were a number of signals indicating that there was demand for Microsoft’s leading tablet prior to SHI’s inclusion in the program, and added that he had been looking into opportunities for reselling Surface with Microsoft for several months before becoming authorized under the Microsoft Devices Program last month.
Surface was the most-searched-for product in the first two quarters of this year, which was not carried by SHI, according to McNamara. He stated: “So we knew there was demand there. You hear two stories about Surface right now: The first is that Surface isn't selling, and the second is that everyone is talking about it.”
With regard to Microsoft broadening the reselling opportunities of Surface to additional partners, McNamara said: “I have no insight on Microsoft's plans but I would imagine that they'll open Surface up to more partners in the near future.”
In relation to overall tablet sales, SHI is not seeing devices cannibalize PC sales, according to McNamara. He commented: “The majority of tablets we're selling are being deployed as complementary devices and aren't replacing notebooks.”
A 54 percent growth was also noted by SHI for Lenovo tablet sales in Q2, in addition to the Samsung and Apple sales increases for tablets. SHI's Corporate Division revenue increased 39 percent year-over-year in the first half of this year. (CY) Link