Business | Features
Flip arrives in the Middle East with focus on youth market
Cisco platform in Dubai will take device to regional retailers
- By Derek Baldwin, Business Features Reporter
- Published: 00:00 October 30, 2010
- Image Credit: DEREK BALDWIN/Gulf News
- Jonathon Kaplan, Cisco senior vice-president of consumer products, launches the Flip camera in Dubai.
Dubai : With smartphones capable of doing seemingly everything under the sun but fixing dinner, one wouldn't bet the farm on launching a new single-function gadget that only simply shoots video.
But despite the odds, Jonathon Kaplan, Cisco's Senior Vice-President of Consumer Products, managed to do just that with the Flip camera that not only shoots two hours of video on one charge, it crisply captures moving images in high definition 720p.
Now, for the first time, the unit will be sold in the Middle East for under Dh699.
On a swing through Dubai to promote the Middle East launch of the Flip shoot-and-share camcorders, Kaplan said improved versions of Flip Mino and Flip Ultra will be unveiled in the next four to six weeks for sale at retailers across the Middle East.
"This is our first launch, we're very proud to bring Flip to the region," Kaplan, 41, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview at Cisco offices in Dubai's Knowledge Village. "It's not the old stuff, it's our newest and greatest line of Flip."
More than 6 million Flips have been sold around the world to consumers who want the user friendly point and shoot ease of the lightweight digital camcorder.
Booming sales
Flip's popularity is expected to spread.
"We believe we can sell millions of units here in the Middle East," Kaplan said.
Three years after launching the Flip via California start up company Pure Digital and then selling to Cisco last year for $590 million (Dh2.16 billion) in stock, Kaplan said sales have doubled in the last year, an indication that people want quality, shoot-and-share video in addition to their separate mobile phones.
The surge in sales means Flip has captured 70 per cent of the shoot-and-share market and 25 per cent of the overall camcorder market, he said.
Joining forces with Cisco means more global clout as well as an established Cisco platform in Dubai from which to present Flip to a greater audience, he said, that simply wasn't possible for the smaller Pure Digital.
Through Cisco's base, Flip will be sold in regional digital electronics retailers such as Sharaf DG, Carrefour, Jumbo Electronics, Jackey's and Plug-Ins.
Connection with a gadget
Kaplan said technology can only take a product so far — consumers must experience a connection with a gadget that makes their lives better in some way.
"People don't embrace it [Flip] as technology," he said. "They embrace it as lifestyle."
"Flip makes them feel good about themselves and how they use technology," he said, adding that given its small slender shell, the size is "not a burden".
A third factor behind Flip's success is that "people like to communicate" and can easily record live images and share them with friends over social networking sites or on YouTube. The ease with which stored videos can be downloaded gives Flip it's name — with a pull of a button on the side of the camera, a USB flips out to easily transfer video to computers, laptops or other phones with USB ports.
Kaplan said Flip camcorders are sold with FlipShare factory-installed, software that keeps video files in order and helps users simply drag and drop them into the desired locations to share with friends or upload them to the web.
Flip sales projections are optimistic, he said, given that 60 per cent of Middle East users under the age of 25 are young users.
Young tech lovers here are already familiar with the camcorders big profile in the West and are expected to snap up the first units available in Dubai and the Middle East when they are launched here in the next six weeks, say experts.
Chris Fernando, Managing Editor of PC Magazine Middle and Near East, said the big seller for youth is that high definition video shot on Flip does not need to be converted in order for it to be uploaded to YouTube and other websites. "Flip can be directly uploaded," he said.
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