Markham, Ont. – After entering the notebook market in the U.S. last year, Samsung Electronics America Inc. has now entered the Canadian notebook market, by distributing through the retail channel.
After touring across the U.S. for the past seven months, Samsung’s BizBus Technology Tour 2009 has finally arrived in Canada.
A variety of Samsung products that target home and business users are stationed throughout the 40-foot bright orange RV, also known as the Samsung BizBus. The purpose of the Samsung BizBus Technology Tour is to promote awareness in the partner and end-user communities about the company and its products.
Michael Dodgson, product marketing manager for notebooks in the IT division at Samsung Electronics Canada, said the company recently entered the Canadian notebook market a couple months ago. The BizBus is a way to promote the Samsung brand and create awareness of products for the Canadian marketplace, Dodgson added.
Samsung first entered the notebook market in the U.S. last October. Now, the company is trying to make headway North of the border, by introducing netbooks and notebooks into Canada via the retail channel market.
Marco Nalli, marketing manager for the IT division at Samsung Canada, said the Canadian marketplace is a “saturated and volatile market,” and so the company has decided to offer its notebook and netbook products through top retail partners such as Best Buy and Future Shop.
“We’re relying on our brand name and the quality and performance of our products,” Nalli said. “We’re trying to develop brand awareness around our products in the Canadian market.”
In July, Samsung launched two netbooks, the Samsung NC10 and the Samsung N120 products. Both netbooks have 10.1-inch screens and run on the Intel Atom N270 1.60GHz processor and come with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard disk drive. The netbooks also have a built in 1.3MP webcam and come with 3 USB ports.
The company also has two notebooks in the market today, the Samsung Q320 and the Samsung R522. The Q320 is a 13-inch notebook and the R522 is a 14-inch. Both have spill-resistant keyboards, Dodgson said. The Q320 supports high-end graphics, so it’s ideal for gamers, multimedia and photography enthusiasts.
The BizBus also featured some of Samsung’s digital signs. Nalli said the new models for this year are the UX and UT series. These are good for advertisements, use in control centres, health and medical industries, and more. Especially in the digital signage and large format display space, Nalli says there are an abundance of channel partner opportunities.
“For our partners, there are market opportunities with the services they can provide with the content that goes on the displays and also with managing that content,” Nalli explained.
The Samsung BizBus will continue its tour in Canada until October 26, 2009, when it will then make its way back to the U.S. The BizBus is available for viewing for Samsung’s reseller and dealer partners. Each tour stop lasts about 1.5 hours, unless otherwise requested.