Intel names markets set to drive growth
Vendor puts faith in mobile, home computing and enterprise refreshes
Chip giant Intel wants to double sales through resellers by 2007 and has pinpointed the growth markets to help it achieve its bullish aims.
Intel's figures show UK channel sales are already rising by 16 per cent year-on-year. The vendor said mobile computing and the server market are the strongest growth drivers, with sales growing by 20 per cent for servers and 40 per cent for mobile devices through VARs year-on-year.
Other key growth areas, Intel has said, are digital home computing and enterprise IT equipment refreshes.
The firm has also expanded its reseller network worldwide to include 20 new countries, mainly in eastern Europe and Asia. The company currently has 150,000 resellers worldwide.
"We want to double sales through the channel by 2007," Willy Agatstein, reseller products group general manager at Intel, told CRN at Intel's European Solutions Summit in Madrid.
"It's a challenge we believe we can fulfil. The opportunity is there, the people are there and the growth pattern is there."
Alastair Edwards, senior analyst at Canalys, said: "That's very ambitious indeed.
"Intel's attempts to build channels in Russia in the past weren't that successful; they fizzled out. Eastern Europe and the enlargement of the European Union could be a growth factor, but AMD has recently started signing Intel's eastern European distributors and is being very aggressive."
Intel is hoping to achieve its bullish growth predictions by leveraging its growth markets. Within the mobile space Intel said it will be increasing the range and functions of the Centrino platform, and in 2006 the first wireless broadband WiMax chipsets are scheduled to come to market.
Intel's digital home concept is another potential growth area. "It's a new opportunity (for resellers) to expand and for others that are not selling to consumers to get into that. It's also an opportunity for systems integrators to be in a business they are not in today," said Agatstein.
In the enterprise sector Intel will be shipping a greater variety of server components and quieter chassis to system builders and VARs. The firm said system refresh cycles will drive these.
"We are already starting to see refresh now," said Mike Kinsell, sales director for storage servers at Intel distributor Hammer.
"SMEs have been the most difficult market. People have hung on to old machines. It's changing now; there's a lot of optimism."