Mr Ashok Advani, chairman and chief executive, Blue Star Limited said, "The agreement is not exclusive and Juniper is free to appoint more distributors like us, as we are free to sell routers manufactured by others. However we have no intentions of doing this." Mr Advani said that he was not disappointed at the possibility of not being the only distributor in the future as "there was enough business for all". The routers market size in this country is currently at $ 20 million, which is expected to grow 3 times to 4 times in the next 2 to 3 years.
He added that Blue Star's electronics division was already growing 15 - 20 per cent and the company was targeting at capturing about 25 per cent share of the routers market. He however declined to give any profitability estimates saying, "The scenario looks very bright but no estimates of profit margins are possible. It all depends on how the market grows." While agreeing that in business terms the current agreement with Juniper is like chalk and cheese, Mr. Advani stated that, while the company's core strength will be air-conditioning, professional electronics distribution is a business it has been doing successfully for many years. Further, the company sees Internet as a major opportunity and has decided to explore the field commercially. According to him, globally, in the last 5 years Internet subscribers have grown from 3 million to over 25 million and Internet traffic, worldwide, doubles every 100 days.
According to Mr Wayne Merrick, regional director -- Asia Pacific for Juniper Networks, India is a strategic market and is likely to replace China as the largest market in the next few years. He said that the decision to appoint Blue Star as their distributor was because of their network and their decision to invest upfront, without waiting to see how the market actually develops.
Ranked 20th in the Forbes ASAP list, Juniper is ready with its two new router varieties, M5 and M10, which help it to move into a new marketing space. These two are highly scalable products and their compact form give them an edge over existing products.
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