A quick chat with Vipul Modi, VP, Marketing and Sales, Zion RAM, about the impact of declining PC sales and their efforts to tap into the e-sports scene in India.
Zion RAM has a huge lineup of memory solutions ranging from gaming to servers. We got the opportunity to have an interaction with Vipul Modi, VP, Marketing and Sales at Zion RAM. He goes on to elaborate on their manufacturing and assembly process and also shed light on how they try to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
Digit: Given that PC sales have been on the decline for a while, does India reflect this global trend? Are there any inconsistencies peculiar to the Indian market?
Vipul: India does reflect this global trend of declining PC sales, there is no doubt about it. One of the reasons for the drop in the PC market in India despite the fact that PC penetration in India is less than 10% (lower than other developing countries) is because PC vendors are yet to penetrate into the tier II and III cities.
However, if we observe meticulously, there is definitely an increase in specific market segments. They are the segments which need the convenience a desktop brings – like gaming, servers, thin machines, workstations, etc. There is a need to expand the market for better sales in the future.
The peculiarity of the Indian market is the way it responds to End of Life products. In other markets, the consumer adopts newer technologies fairly seamlessly. However, in India, we still cling on to older ones, till an upgrade becomes absolutely indispensable. Currently we are witnessing one such transition from third generation to fourth generation Intel processors. Such a behaviour really makes it strenuous for brands to make the transition smoothly.
Also, the easy availability of refurbished Chinese products makes this segment very attractive for the channel partners too.
Digit: Is the entire manufacturing and assembly process done in India? If yes, is it beneficial over your competitors?
Vipul: Zion modules are manufactured in a state-of-the-art SMT facility at its plant in Daman following ISO 9001: 2000 certification standards. But at the moment, India lacks the ecosystem that is essential to make the ICs and it cannot happen unless the government resolves to do so, since it will entail a multi-billion dollar investment. However we do undertake the process of an end to end assembly and QC right here in India. Our raw materials (ICs, PCB, Passive components) all come from the world’s most renowned manufacturers.
Of course, it’s beneficial to have the entire assembly line in-house. It gives us control of our output quality and hence our field failure rate is the lowest amongst all brands!
Digit: The e-sports scene has taken off in India. Do you plan on sponsoring any team or maybe hosting your own event?
Vipul: We do realise the potential of this segment in India. In countries like USA, Korea, Japan and China, gaming has already become prime time television attraction. And it’s growing at a stupendous rate in India. We see quite a few gaming tournaments being held regularly with substantial prize pools and premium prizes.
To tap into this emerging segment, we do regularly sponsor gaming tournaments ourselves in addition to participating in prestigious Engineering colleges like IIT Bombay, IIT BHU, Techno India, BITS Pilani to name a few. In addition to this, we are also closely working with Gaming Cafes like LXG in Bangalore and Havok
Nation in Pune to enrich the gaming experience for enthusiasts. As far as gaming teams are concerned, we are open to sponsoring budding teams and individuals who have a passion for gaming. In fact, we were the first brand to sponsor a professional Girl Gamer – Angela!
Digit: Roughly what percentage of your units shipped fall under the performance or high-end category?
Vipul: Performance category includes gaming as well as server motherboards which contribute approximately 20% of our total volume. This category is witnessing steady growth because of demand for high performance machines. The majority contribution comes from the mainstream segment. However, even in this segment we are witnessing a significant rise in the 8GB category for desktops and laptops and drop in the 2GB category.
Digit: With regards to which aspect does Zion RAM have an edge over what the competition has to offer?
Vipul: As you are aware, our biggest strength lies in the fact that we have direct associations with the global giants of the DRAM industry. For example, HCL has been using Zion Ram in its PC Assembly for more than five years and are delighted with the quality and performance Zion is offering.
The marketing plan and its execution for Zion RAM is tremendously good, Our quality sourcing combined with our rigourous QC setup enables to have the lowest field failure rate amongst all brands in India. In addition to our dense sales and service network of over 4000 distributors, the warranty support on Zion RAM is excellent and we can't remember any warranty case where the customer has returned without being satisfied. One of the key highlight shall be the Zion Silver Challenge and also the Paper less warranty which clearly indicates our quality of products having an edge over others. With all these factors combined Zion has made spectacular progress and has become one of the leading RAM manufacturers in India.
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Abhijit Dey
A Star Wars fan and sci-fi enthusiast. When I'm not playing games on my PC, I usually lurk around the Internet, mostly on Reddit. View Full Profile
