Distributor’s chairman rues time-lag on new products, criticising a lack of new devices being released since January
Data Select chairman George McPherson has criticised handset manufacturers for the lack of devices launched this quarter, which has seen sales drop from a record January.
Speaking last week at Data Select’s 11th Platinum Club dealer event in Marlow, McPherson told Mobile News it had over-achieved on its targets for handset sales during the Christmas period, including a record January, but the lack of new devices coming to market has left it powerless to push on.
McPherson lauded the handsets launched by its partners Sony Ericsson, LG, HP Palm, Motorola and Samsung at the 2011 Mobile World Congress, all of which attended the Marlow event, but with the majority of them over a month away from being available business has been “quieter.”
McPherson also highlighted the VAT increase to 20 per cent , credit card bills for Christmas and the economic uncertainty as other reasons for the sales drop. He insisted however, despite the “challenging” period, it will still achieve its targets.
“January was a great month for us, but [February] has been a bit quiet due to there not being new products, although we will still meet our targets.The new products we are waiting on only start to come through in March. There aren’t enough new handsets in the market.”
McPherson expressed “frustration” with Nokia, one of its biggest for-volume partners, which will not launch a ‘high-end’ handset until April.
“We are a big supporter of Nokia and Nokia haven’t got a high-end handset out until April, which is very important to us. So because of that, Nokia is a manufacturer we can’t rely upon to give us high sales.”
He supported the decision to partner with Microsoft, however, and sees no reason why the manufacturer will not surge back to number one. Nokia has a market share of 30 per cent and is in an enviably strong position, he said.
