“We Strive to Build Storage Solutions which Manage Content Effortlessly”

With the growing demand of 4G, consumers are shifting focus towards generating and sharing a lot of content through mobile devices which has accounted for increased storage issues on smartphones. Rajesh Gupta, Country Manager of SanDisk India & SAARC Retail Sales & Marketing for Western Digital Corporation share his company’s upcoming Plans.

DT: What have been the key highlights of the year 2016 for SanDisk and Western Digital?

A: 2015–16 has been a rewarding and a successful year for Western Digital, sharing some of the key achievements of the year.

• Launched industry’s first ever storage survey - The survey covering 1458 smartphone users across 14 top cities, cites that at least 60 percent of smartphone users run out of memory every week and they end up deleting apps and content to free up phone memory.

• New range of products launched – Western Digital recently announced an upgraded range of SanDisk Mobile Memory Solutions Suite which have been specially designed keeping in mind challenges faced by Android and iOS users with regards to transfer of data on smartphones.

• Run a mega consumer campaign during the festive season – During the festive season, we launched a five month long consumer campaign starting Sept 1st 2016 till Jan 31st 2017.

DT: What is the central force which keeps partners and consumers loyal to your brand?

A: According to me, it is the ‘Quality’ of the product(s) that the end users get to use which makes them trust SanDisk brand with their most prized memories. With advancement in technology, the need of the digital consumers is also growing. Western Digital’s constant endeavour is to offer best in class storage products that deliver over the top performance, in order to be able to meet the growing demands of consumers.  

DT: Do you think that Government’s ‘Make-in-India’ and ‘Digital India’ programs are seeing the light of day?

A: The government is talking about Digital India and e-governance, but delivering that requires connectivity and mobile devices. Any solution that touches mobility has a huge opportunity, not only from a business perspective but also from a solution perspective. Today, almost everybody owns a mobile phone which means businesses and the government can connect with them. Just imagine the mammoth of possibilities and opportunities that can be explored.

DT: How does the channel help you to reach out to your potential customers?

A: Our channel partners are the backbone of our success and growth in the Indian market. They have been extremely helpful in expanding our presence across the length and breadth of the country and distributing our products to the Tier-II and Tier-III markets of India. We have three distributors across the country: Beetel, Ingram Micro and Rashi Peripherals and our products are sold across 400+ cities in India through a network of 2000+ dealers.

Last year, we launched two innovative training programs for our channel partners - SanDisk Advantage Training Program and SanDisk HC League.

DT: What’s your roadmap or strategy for the year 2017?

A: With the advancement in technology and changing consumer needs we plan to expand our product portfolio further. With the growing demand of 4G, consumers are shifting focus towards generating and sharing a lot of content through mobile devices which has accounted for increased storage issues on smartphones. We strive to build storage solutions which will help consumers to manage content effortlessly. We are working on embedding latest technology in our products to stay at par with the modern day demands of our consumers and going to focus on developing super high capacity and performance products that would offer best in class performance.