Richard Clarke (pictured), national sales manager A/NZ for Lexar Media speaks to CRN about the factors that have contributed to its financial success within the A/NZ region and its predictions on the future of the digital memory market both locally and globally.
CRN: What's new for Lexar Media
Clarke: Lexar Media has enjoyed the last two quarters of overall revenue increases with this current quarter also budgeted for another large growth curve.
The increase in revenue is a result of the strong foundations local Lexar employees have set in place to build ongoing business through the channel.
Our distribution partners are focused on using these foundations to seek new opportunities and retailers are seeing Lexar as one of the few Flash (USB & Card) vendors in the A/NZ market capable of providing the programs and support needed to grow a tough category in a tougher market.
CRN: What increase in revenue has Lexar Media experienced over the last three quarters and in comparison to previous financial years
Clarke: We have reported a 338 percent increase in quarter-on-quarter revenue during our second financial quarter for this year, compared with our first quarter, which began in September 2008.
This followed a 278 percent increase in revenue during the first quarter of this year compared with the final quarter of the previous financial year.
CRN: How many resellers/distributors do you have and who are they
Clarke: Lexar Media is one of only two vendors within the A/NZ region that offers the full range memory formats across all key channels - Consumer Electronics, Pro Photographic, Camera Specialist, Office supplies and Telecommunications. Our current distributors include:
Australian distributors of Lexar Media products: WestGroup and Ingram Micro.
Australian distributors of Kodak branded Lexar Media products: Australian Photo Supplies
CRN: How has the economic climate affected you
Clarke: Contrary to market uncertainty, Lexar Media's performance over the last two quarters has excelled beyond expectations.
We attribute this success to the ongoing support we provide to the channel and the strong relationships we have with our customers.
From a marketing perspective, Lexar has shifted its focus from above-the-line branding campaigns to increased channel marketing promotions, seasonal consumer promotions and in-store branding with creative POS solutions to maximise sell through and stock turns.
Our parent company, Micron Technology Inc, provides us with the ability to own the manufacturing process from start to finish which undoubtedly gives us pricing and technological advantages over our competitors.
The fact that we produce our own flash and allocate to meet our demands and forecasts enables us to hit ship targets with only the highest quality products onboard.
Given that we're currently in a very volatile market, our recent sales history is showing that retailers are growing more comfortable with the Micron/Lexar integration and as we continue to evolve, our retail partners are certainly going to be the beneficiaries of our growth.
CRN: Are there any particular memory formats within the region that are performing better than another
Clarke: With the massive adoption of mobile devices amongst Australians the MicroSD format has massive growth opportunities.
Individually, Lexar Media has shown strong growth or at least maintained volume across all categories.
We noticed an increase in SecureDigital (SD) memory card sales during the Christmas period and demand for our Gaming Edition memory cards also increased in line with the increase in gaming console purchases such as the Nintendo Wii.
The formats that are excelling for Lexar Media are MicroSD, MemoryStick PRODuo (MSPD) and USB.
Tender wins in key high profile retailers such as MYER and Harvey Norman saw MSPD sales increase by over 700 percent from the previous financial year.
We also experienced incredible growth in the USB memory category with a unit growth increase over 180 percent quarter-on-quarter and revenue by 278 percent quarter-on-quarter highlighting the brand strengths and ability to hit key price points.
Lexar Media is a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of NAND flash and DRAM memory products under the Lexar and Crucial brand names.
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