AqTronics-Mouser eye growth opportunities for components distribution in India!

Bangalore based AqTronics Technologies Pvt Ltd is an innovator in the distribution and marketing of semiconductors, passives, interconnects, electro-mechanical, IT and enterprise products. It is a focused demand creation distributor for India markets.

According to Ranga Prasad, business development manager, AqTronics, the company desires to be a part of the technology supply chain for customers in India.

He said: "We would like to bring the latest technologies to India and provide an exemplary standard of quality service through superior product marketing, outstanding technical solution support, in-depth inventory, professional selling procedures and the most reliable operational systems in distribution."

AqTronics to distribute Mouser's components in India
AqTronics recently entered into an agreement with Mouser Electronics Inc., a leading global distributor of electronic components.

Under the agreement, AqTronics will distribute Mouser's electronics components in India. All of Mouser's components are available through AqTronics through INR (Indian Rupees) and USD (US dollars) with Modvat refund.

Mouser Electronics is one of the fastest growing global catalog and web based distributors in the electronics industry. The company is focused on the rapid introduction of newest products, leading edge technologies, and world class customer service.

It is specially focused on design engineers and buyers demanding small to medium quantities of the latest products. Hence, Mouser provides customer-focused distribution.

Mouser is also an authorized distributor for over 390 industry leading manufacturers. With a new catalog every six months, it ensures that the newest products are added and the end-of-life products removed from the print catalog. Mouser’s website features over a million products for easy purchase in USD, INR and with Modvat refund through AqTronics.

USP of AqTronics-Mouser relationship
Ranga Prasad says: "AqTronics' focus is demand creation distribution. This calls for supporting customers on the complete product development life cycle (PDLC)."

Mouser Electronics will help AqTronics will support customers for -- functional engineering, embedded development tool selection, bread board to engineering BOM, prototyping with small quantities, and NPI or pilot production – broken pack (Non MoQ, non MoV).

Components distribution and India advantage
Estimating the global components distribution market, according to Mouser, the semiconductor markets globally are estimated to be $1.2 trillion.

The Indian market share in percentage terms is said to be lesser than 2 percent of the world TAM (total available market). According to the companies, this calls for tremendous growth opportunities for components distribution in the Indian market.

Naturally, the India advantage comes into play!

India, with the second largest population in the world, and a huge talent pool of engineers, is a promising market. Especially, in the R&D activities, there are a lot of technology companies in major cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, etc.

Mouser will focus and continue to put an effort into developing this market. Mouser is very excited about the growth in the Indian market and the opportunity to bring its world class product line card to the region.

AqTronics' strategies to tap Indian market with Mouser
AqTronics and Mouser have aggressive plans for the Indian market.

According to Ranga Prasad: “Mouser will re-inforce resources in India by increasing its presence through partners, e-marketing through the Internet, e-magazines and appropriate search engines. Mouser's focus is on bringing the 'newest parts for the newest designs', and ensuring that the engineering community is best served with all of the latest parts.

“To support this, AqTronics, and also Mouser, will update their website daily with new parts and components from over 390 major manufacturers. There will also also be a fully updated catalog in India every six months.”

Warehouse in pipeline
Entering India in the electronic components space also calls for having a dedicated warehouse at some point of time. Since customer support is one of Mouser's strength, the company is serious in its approach toward India, and will provide its best services for after sales support.

Putting appropriate resource to support customers is Mouser's belief. Therefore, it will not neglect the needs of adding a warehouse wherever and whenever required. It also partners with FEDEX for international operations and has a three-day shipping from Texas, USA, to its customer base in the region.

Companies represented by AqTronics
AqTronics represents the following companies:

Mouser Electronics: Catalogue sales distribution.
Digi International: Leaders in device networking and M2M.
SST: Serial/parallel Flash, NAN drive (solid-state drive), 8051 microcontrollers.
ISSI: Synchronous SRAM, DDR-II, asynchronous SRAM, DRAM, automotive and industrial versions.
Fujistu: Thermal printers, interface boards, touch panels, Bluetooth modules.
Upek: Capacitive type -– large area, swipe sensors, controllers, RSA tokens.
Ember: Zigbee chipsets.
ORing: Ethernet switches.
Sarantel: GPS Geo Helix antennae.
iWatt: AC/DC ICs, DC/DC ICs, Advance power solutions
Tysso: Magnetic swipe readers, keyboards, bar code readers/scanners, POS systems.
Everlight: LED lighting solutions.
MPS: Monolithic power systems -- regulators, low drop regulators, battery, chargers/protection, transformer based power supplies.
Narda Batteries: Batteries for telecom, UPS, power, solar energy, emergency lighting and power systems, mobile communications, radio, railways.

Taking on competition
India is also home to leading electronic components and distributors, such as Farnell. Contending with such stiff competition is key on the agenda.

Ranga Prasad adds: “In addition to the strategies mentioned earlier, we would like to re-inforce and strengthen our relationships with the universities' research teams, and ensure that the engineers are aware of Mouser's services and support when they are still in the universities.

“Mouser's focus is driven by ensuring that the latest components are always available. Its stock profile is focused on electronic components, and not on other peripheral ranges.”

Farnell banking big on India

Farnell Electronics, a part of the Premier Farnell group of companies, recently established its sales presence in Pune, as part of its phased rollout plan, post the launch of the company in June 2008.

Headquartered in Bangalore, the company has already established seven other branch offices in cities, including Bangalore, Coimbatore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Mumbai, and, plans to set up another branch in Kolkata.

Harriet Green, CEO, said, "We have put up a new India Web site, which has over 450,000 products. Our site also supports live chat. We also have eight call centers. Our support is largely for the SMEs. We are a publicly filed company in India." The company has over 2 million customers worldwide.

On Farnell, she further added: "We have a great supply chain ecosystem for our customers. This is total care for customers. As an example, we stock all of TI's 40,000+ products. We take a Web order every 8 seconds. We are extending this investment in India."

Ravi Pagar, Director, Farnell Electronics, added that users are able to search on the Indian Web site for components and products by part numbers.

The company has two technology centers, one in China and another in Bangalore, India. According to Green, Farnell's goal is to achieve $1 billion for the Indian market.

She added: "We have already invested Rs. 200 million in the purchase of Hynetics, besides hiring people and on infrastructure. We will spend another Rs 200 million on branches, warehousing, etc."

Complying with RoHS, REACH and WEEE
With so much of focus nowadays on green electronics, it is natural for Farnell to be one of the leading proponents. Green said, "Our components are REACH, RoHS and WEEE compliant."

She added: "Unfortunately, the lead content in Bangalore is quite high. We will also work with the environmental agencies here and work on resolving this problem."

Farnell is said to be the only components distributor in China, which is stocking products that are RoHS compliant. "We give a guarantee on our invoice that our products are RoHS, REACH and WEE compliant. In China, each province has zones where electronics products are dumped," she said.

According to her, all major components manufacturers were now becoming environment compliant. "The supply chain is more now in balance as the electronics environment is maturing."

Speaking on partnerships, she noted: "We are exclusive partners with Altera in Asia. We also have a special partnership with TI. We have over 4,500 authorized partnerships globally, with companies in semiconductors, passives, electromechanical, connectors, wires, screens, ICs, repairs, power, displays, flexible substrates, optos, etc."

Pagar added: "Sony Ericsson is setting up a design center in Chennai. We are partners globally, and they wanted to replicate that in India. We have a similar kind of relationship with GM."

Highlighting the fact that India has a great design industry, he felt that if more distributors like Farnell were to enter India, it would only go on to help the country.