Mall Culture Catches Up

That Ludhiana is a potential destination for IT vendors can be judged from
the fact that all the leading distributors have opened their warehouses in the
region and the vendors have also appointed Area Sales Managers in the market.
Ludhiana is emerging as a potential for SMB segment and therefore, it is under
the scanner of major vendors and distributors in the country. The market clocks
a business of Rs 50 crore per month and it is growing at a rate of 30 to 40
percent YoY. Ludhiana contributes 30 percent of the IT business in Punjab
(excluding Chandigarh), that means the state is drawing one third of its
business from this particular market.

There are various factors that make Ludhiana a potential upcountry market for
IT vendors. It is a hot area for real estate investments, and investors like
Ansal Properties and Infrastructure and DLF are coming up with big projects in
the town. There is lots of growth in infrastructure segment. This generates
opportunities for solution providers (SPs) in the town to grab challenging and
profitable deals. For instance, as the mall culture is growing it is giving a
boost to the networking, storage, security and surveillance projects. Westend
Mall is one such example that has given business deals to SPs in the town.
Education segment is also on the rise as multiple engineering institutes are
coming up. Therefore, students are becoming one of the promising buyers of PCs,
laptops and networking products.

Ludhiana

FACT FILE Market clocks business of Rs 50 crore per month Due to the major presence of educational institutes, large number of student buyers Growing real estate segment gives rise to IT deployments

Ravi Khemani of Rashi Peripherals in Ludhiana shared that whenever a new
product, brand or technology is launched, vendors and distributors consider
Ludhiana to be an important market

and the products are directly introduced in the market to test the market
response.

There are many strong and established industries that create opportunities
for IT segment to generate profit in Ludhiana. Cycle, hosiery, hand tools and
export have a strong presence and as they initiate the process of automation and
system integration, it nurtures direct business for networking and hardware
supply for partners and SPs.

Also, Ludhiana is a town inhabited by a large number of NRIs, therefore it is
a fairly rich state. It is also rich in agriculture. Geographically, Punjab is a
small state in comparison to Rajasthan and UP, and the per capita income of
people is relatively high. On the whole, the cash flow in Ludhiana is impressive
and vendors take it as an opportunity to promote their high-end products in the
market. The direct presence of vendors and national distributors puts Ludhiana
under the focal point for experimenting and promoting new products.

There are approximately 350 channel partners in the region and Ludhiana is
able to sell around 1,500 desktops, 2,000 notebooks and 50 to 60 servers every
month. Rather than institutes, individual students are the potential buyers
here. Standalone industries and small corporate firms also contribute as
promising customers for IT market here.

Before the economic recession, Ludhiana was growing outstandingly but right
now there has been stiffness in its growth and slow progress. However, channel
partners are optimistic that Ludhiana has got enough potential and the market
will reassume its pace to grow as colleges, institutions, government sectors and
individual buyers continue to draw the attention of vendors.

Amrita Tejasvi

amritat@cybermedia.co.in