Connectivity device specialist Belkin International is planning to complete a rebranding exercise by the end of the year.

The company has established a niché for itself and is present in all consumer segments. Now it wants to clearly define both its target audience and the product categories it operates in.

Emirates Business spoke to Nima Ahmadinejad, Vice-President – Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Emea) – about the company's new strategy.

Why is Belkin undergoing a rebranding exercise?

Belkin as a brand is in the fifth year of a 10-year transformation. As it becomes more of a consumer brand targeting specific segments and demographics, Belkin needs to send the right message to its customers.

Belkin has been in the business for 25 years with products for different categories and, therefore, it is time to become more focused. We want to be clear about whom we target and talk to. As a brand we are present for products such as iPod and the SME segment. At the same time, Belkin is not present in the server room and, therefore, we want to be clear about our products and customers.

Does that mean new innovations and product categories for Belkin?

We are looking at high-growth areas. The brand is present in the notebook segment and within that there is the netbook, and Belkin will launch products for this category. Another promising area is the green market, there will be new products and solutions that will cut power consumption.

In terms of new product areas, Belkin will be looking at the wireless networking segment. The product category will focus on a gigabit power line that would help in streaming HD quality data through an internet connection to a TV.

Concepts such as the smart home have still not taken off completely, but Belkin is focusing on managing content wirelessly. User experience and price points have to be worked out, that is why we are working on finding out the exact trends and designing our offering according to market requirements. Another trend we see is the high penetration of video and the vast amount of music and photos available to consumers. More than 50 per cent of content from digital cameras is not stored or archived, and this is another area Belkin will focus on.

At Belkin R&D, there is a whole team working towards creating such products. E-readers are another area of interest and a potential growth area for the business. The core business will focus on creating products around a device, and will never move away from that strategy.

As a brand focused on IT connectivity solutions, is there a pressure to constantly innovate? What level of investment does this require?

Belkin product lines need constant innovation and investment on a quarterly basis. On investment, I cannot give a figure as we are a private organisation. We benchmark ourselves against competitors on a dollar to dollar perspective.

There is investment in R&D, consumer research, gaining consumer insights and forming focus groups. Belkin has four PhDs who majored in psychology driving our consumer insights programme. These psychologists, based at our headquarters don't do research only for America but work with local offices.

Our R&D centres are in Los Angeles and New York. These centres have large-scale engineers focused on accessories. In the Middle East, particularly, there is a young population and this is also taken into consideration. We don't see massive differences in usage and consumption between the developed and regional markets. Data is shared constantly by these centres as they are integral parts of our company expansion strategy, which will be conducted in phases.

Could you provide some information on the expansion strategy?

In the first phase, the company was hyper-focused on expanding the team from a sales and marketing point of view. This was done by establishing distributor and retailer partnerships in the region. In the second phase, we will focus on consumer behaviour, especially in countries such as China and Brazil. In 2009, the company achieved 18 per cent growth in the Emea region despite the global slowdown. We performed better than our competitors as we focused on our investments and strategy.

In Emea, Europe stood out and there was also growth in the Asia Pacific. Overall performance was affected by the decline in the market but despite that our hyper-focus was on capturing market share. There was an increase in market share in wireless and iPod accessories segment. The main drivers for the firm have been the notebook and mobile segments.

What are the main challenges for Belkin in the Middle East?

Supply and logistics are issues in the region as it takes more time than average to bring products to the consumer. Challenges are different in every region and we are also optimistic about the opportunities present here.

The focus for Belkin has been on Bric [Brazil, Russia, India and China] and we have made significant investments in this regard. Belkin India has just been launched and represents quite a large presence for the company. As we expand, factors such as competition from the Chinese peripherals sector are still present but are not a threat as they are direct commodity brands. For Belkin, the focus is driving the brand and gaining market share.