Genius Corporation, founded in Taiwan, in 1985, is a prominent brand of computer peripherals and consumer electronics, with major product lines covering loudspeakers, earphones (headphones), mice, keyboards, webcams, graphics tablets, digital cameras and camcorders, game peripherals and laptop bags.
Sharon Chiang, Project Manager Asia Sales Dept, KYE SYSTEMS CORP, regarding their focus areas and marketing initiatives in India, clarifies, “Genius actually started with PC accessories. Since the PC business has been down for the last 2 years, we started mobile accessories while continuing with PC accessories. India is big market. To be more correct it is better to say India is a combination of several markets. Every region has its own language, habits, preferences, etc. We will have different partners for different regions, where we will promote both PC and mobility accessories. We will launch products countrywide rather than at global level.”
Genius owns the US patent for their mouse wheel that was invented by their excellent R&D team. In product design and innovation, Genius has won numerous awards worldwide, such as the iF Award in Germany, the red dot and G-Mark awards from Japan and the Taiwan Excellence Award. The Taiwan Top 20 Global Brands 2010 award for Genius underscores the continued recognition their technology innovations at global level.
Educating the channel regarding products, technologies and company policies plays an important role in the success of any brand. In this regard, Marivn Darwish Regional sales Manager Asia Sales Dept, KYE SYSTEMS CORP, details, “We have a local team in India headed by a country manager and 3 regional managers. We will add 2 more regional managers by the end of 2014. Their job is to interact with tier 1, 2, 3 level partners and give them the training on the right selling points and right positioning.”
Regarding brand positioning and right pricing, Marivn Darwish adds, “For brand positioning, we have magazines like NCN. Besides that we also conduct local seminars and dealer meets. We also have some schemes for the end users such as free gifts. In India, there are 2 or 3 providers who are aggressively positioned. We want to position ourselves among the top providers. Initially there will be problems, but if we work hard we can position ourselves well. In the south, we struggled for 2 to 3 yrs but we gradually established ourselves. From now on, we will use our experience in the south to position ourselves in other regions in India.”
According to Interbrand, the success in branding Taiwanese products to emerging markets like Russia, China, Indonesia and India has contributed to the aggregate brand value growth in 2010, and Genius has been in these markets for a long time.
Regarding their future goals for India, Marivn Darwish says, “We want to be a well-known brand in India. PC accessories market is stagnant and it is coming down in some areas, but mobile accessories market is growing and we can maintain our overall share and even grow further. For mobile accessories, Genius will be a value added brand.”
