Dubai:A revamped Logitech is hoping to challenge companies such as Apple and Cisco with a new line of consumer electronics, according to Antoine Preisig, the vice president and general manager for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
The focus will now be on touch screens.
"The whole world will organise itself around the screens: the mobile screen, the living room screen and the work screen," he told Gulf News in an interview on Thursday. "We have identified that and completely realigned the company around the screen."
The company also announced on Thursday that is will be the first to provide a set top box for Google TV.
That is a big departure from Logitech's history of making PC accessories, but Preisig said its new products would still be peripherals.
"We are not shooting for the platform," he said. "We will never make mobile phones or screens, but we will accessorise the area."
Like most companies over the last two years, Logitech was hit by the global financial crisis. Preisig said the company made aggressive adjustments through the organisation.
Sales for the fourth quarter of financial year 2010 were $525 million (Dh1.93 billion), up 29 per cent from $408 million in the same quarter last year. Fifteen per cent of that came from the EMEA region.
In response to concerns over the buildup of old stock with its channel partners, the company trimmed down its line up, eliminating about 30 per cent of those products it considered out-of-date.
"We also looked into ways to simplify our business and be more focused," he said "We looked at products that, over time, had crept up on us and did not have big returns for us and our partners."
It has also cut back on the number of products it releases annually. In 2008, Logitech was releasing an estimated 100 to 200 products a year, but this year the company will launch only about 80.
Logitech is still trying to gain a stronger foothold in the Middle East. "We feel we should own much more market share then we own right now," says Yousuf Atwan, the company's regional director for Middle East and Africa.
It has identified two areas the company will focus on in the region, including consumer awareness and distribution. He said the company was not happy with its current distribution set up, although he identified strong partnerships with Carrefour and SharafDG. "The distribution base has to change," he said. "[We] depend on added value distributors and what we have here is IT related distributors."
He said a lack of consumer knowledge about Logitech's products has been an issue. While the company says it sees strong growth in its core lineups of products — neither Atwan nor Preisig will give specific numbers — the company has had little success marketing its newer products in the region. Its Squeeze Box, a WiFi-based internet radio and wireless music player that won awards at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, found little success in the UAE. "I don't think consumers are ready," Atwan said.
So for now, consumers will probably have to wait to see Logitech's latest products in the UAE. "You will see a greater range, but we're focusing here on the key categories, mice, keyboard, webcams and headsets," he said.
