Samsung appoints Synnex for IT products

Samsung has appointed Synnex national distributor for its full IT product portfolio.

Synnex will initially focus on the vendor’s displays, printers, consumables, notebooks/systems and storage products. CEO, Kee Ong, cited strong opportunity for Samsung’s re-launched notebooks in the local market, as well as its print offerings in the managed services space.

“Samsung has tried to consolidate its distribution model – now they’ll be working with one national distributor that covers all the IT products and can drive them through to resellers,” Ong said. The pair were in discussions for nearly a year before inking the agreement. Synnex received its first Samsung stock shipments last week.

“Samsung is a large player in the market – we needed to clarify our role and expectations and had plenty of discussions,” Ong said.

Samsung’s presence in the corporate dealer market was another key element behind the significant relationship, he said.

“It has been our ambition for some time to move into the corporate channel – Samsung is a part of that strategy for us,” Ong said.

Samsung director – IT Division, Phil Newton, said the new relationship was an extension on an existing regional and global relationship the vendor has enjoyed with Synnex elsewhere. The new partnership would hopefully expand the vendor’s penetration into the market.

“Our major competitors are dealing with both Synnex and Ingram Micro, and we felt there would be minimal crossover,” Newton said. “Ingram Micro is focused primarily on our B2B business – I’d say that would account for over 80 per cent of the business we do with them, and Synnex we see as more of a play with the traditional reseller.”

Giving resellers the extra choice from a national player was another incentive in the partnership, Newton added. Although Samsung also has partnerships with Westan and Queensland-based XiT Distribution to cater for a regional presence and specialised resellers, typically resellers would be locked in to Ingram Micro.

Ong played down any potential conflict between Samsung and Synnex’s other key printing and consumables partners, including HP, and stressed its ability to service several vendors in that space.

“To provide all [printing] as a service, you can’t avoid the hardware side. But consumables is very important to us for managed print services because you need to offer several brands to deliver those kinds of services,” Ong said.

The distributor will also look at exploring Samsung’s consumer electronics range further down the road, he said.

It is understood embattled distributor, Westan, still represents the vendor’s CE products in Australia.

Synnex plans to launch new reseller incentives and partner programs, including targeted notebook campaigns, to promote Samsung early next year.

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