More than 50 ICT and consumer electronics (CE) vendors have received official nominations for the ‘Middle East Retail Academy (MERA): 2013 Awards’, which take place at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi on May 22nd in conjunction with DISTREE Middle East 2013 – the region’s leading annual retail channel event.
Farouk Hemraj, CEO and co-founder at DISTREE Events, said: “We are delighted to once again play host to the MERA Awards at DISTREE Middle East. We want to congratulate all the vendors that have received official nominations and look forward to welcoming then to the Gala Dinner and live electronic voting session on May 22nd.”
The Vendor of the Year nominations are based on continuous feedback collected from retailers and e-tailers across the region during the last 12 months as part of MERA’s monthly report service. Receiving an official nomination marks out a vendor as a top five brand in a specific product category. The full list of vendor nominees for each product category (listed in alphabetical order) is as follows.
- PCs: Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Toshiba
- TABLETS: Asus, Eurostar, HCL, Lenovo, Prestigio
- SMARTPHONE & TABLET ACCESSORIES: Golla, Hama, Imation, Promate, Puro
- PC ACCESSORIES: Belkin, Genius, Logitech, Microsoft, Targus
- IMAGING: Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Samsung, Sony
- STORAGE: Buffalo, Sandisk, Seagate, Toshiba, WD
- PRINTING: Brother, Canon, HP, Samsung, Xerox
- SMARTPHONES: Blackberry, HTC, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung
- TVs: LG, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba
- GAMES: Activision, Konami, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony
- HOME NETWORKING: Belkin, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, Sitecom
- SOFTWARE: BitDefender, Eset, Kaspersky, Microsoft, Symantec
- AUDIO: Altec Lansing, Bose, JBL, Philips, Sennheiser
During the live electronic vote, hundreds of senior retail executives will be asked to determine an overall winner for each category based on a number of criteria including channel strategy, inventory management, margin potential, retailer support, marketing, pricing and demand generation.
Hemraj added: “The open and transparent voting system means that these awards have real meaning in the Middle East retail channel. Each nominated vendor is a leading brand in its category and we look forward to celebrating their collective achievements at the Gala Dinner.”
A total of 52 vendors received nominations with seven appearing in multiple product categories. Samsung leads the way with five nominations, followed by Microsoft, Sony and Toshiba with three each. Belkin, Canon and HP received two nominations apiece. Although recently acquired by Belkin, Linksys was treated as a separate vendor because nominations were based on retail performance throughout the last 12 months.
DISTREE Middle East will take place from May 21st to 23rd at the Fairmont Bab Al Bahr in Abu Dhabi, UAE. The region’s leading annual ICT and consumer electronics (CE) retail event will play host to 600 senior channel executives.
“The MERA Awards are celebrate the growth and development of the regional retail channel,” added Hemraj. “There remains real diversity in terms of consumer brands and healthy relationships with the Middle East’s distributors and retailers remain critical to market success.”
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