Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc., the biggest distributor of technology products, is making a push for its own line of computer-related gear.
Ingram Micro’s brand, called V7, has been sold in Europe for more than a decade, said Rainer Kozlik, vice president and general manager of the product line.
“With the success that we have seen in Europe and the global infrastructure Ingram has, we can see growing a successful private label business into other regions,” Rainer said.
The move is a bit of a twist for Ingram, known for distributing the products of other companies, including Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
The V7 push expands Ingram into its own line of products, which carry more profits for the stores and resellers it supplies to.
Started With Businesses
Ingram started out with V7 products for businesses, including mice, keyboards, flat-panel monitors and ink for printers.
Three years ago, the company expanded to include consumer electronics, spurred by demand for gadgets such as portable navigation devices, notebook computer cases, digital picture frames, notebook batteries and cables.
Ingram contracts with plants in China and Taiwan to make V7 products.
The company, which Wall Street expects to see $35 billion in sales this year, operates on the slimmest of profits, typically netting pennies on the dollar.
Revenue for V7 products isn’t broken out. It’s presumably a small part of Ingram’s overall business.
Ingram sells V7 gear for less than other brand names. But the company and its customers,retailers and resellers of tech gear,get to keep more of the profits.
“Our focus is increasing gross profit for our customers and helping Ingram increase operating margins and get into the consumer electronic businesses,” Kozlik said.
V7 gives resellers a chance to offer a cheaper line of products, said Jeff Frederichs, senior manager of global market for the brand.
“It does offer some diversity in a portfolio (of products) that resellers can offer,” he said. “That tier-one brand may not necessarily be what the customer is looking for.”
That Ingram is behind the brand gives resellers some confidence, according to Frederichs.
“It allows a degree of trust,” he said.
The company is seeing more requests from technology consultants that work with corporations for devices that traditionally have been marketed only to consumers, Frederichs said.
GPS
V7’s line of dashboard and portable GPS devices is being sold to companies that specialize in managing large fleets of trucks, he said.
“Many traditional resellers are looking at navigation beyond consumer uses,” Frederichs said.
But Ingram has to walk a fine line by not putting off makers of the brand name products it distributes.
“Our focus is not to compete with A-brand products,” Kozlik said. “That’s the biggest part of our distribution business.”
Ingram acquired the rights to the V7 brand,once called Videoseven,more than a decade ago.
The business was folded into a German subsidiary that stems from Ingram’s 1998 buy of a $100 million majority stake in Macrotron AG from rival Clearwater, Fla.-based Tech Data Corp.
It integrated the company into a subsidiary in Munich called Ingram Macrotron AG.
Ingram wants to get U.S. consumers more familiar with V7.
CES
The company is set to display the line at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.
It’s also struck a deal with Compton-based Belkin International Inc. to make computer and audio cables, Kozlik said.
New products are set to be added to the V7 lineup next year.
Ingram is considering digital TVs and portable music and DVD players for V7, according to Kozlik.
“We will have a lot of launches in 2008,” he said. “Most will be consumer electronics.”
