The move reinforces Belkin’s commitment to build on its existing strength in the retail market and create a channel capable of selling its products to resellers serving the small and medium business segment as well.

“We have ITE Distribution and Ashley in the UAE and we now have Aptec in Saudi Arabia,” said Andre Van Rensburg, Middle East and Africa (MEA) manager at Belkin. “Obviously we don’t want to start stepping on our existing distributors toes because they do an excellent job for us. In the Middle East and the UAE itself, our existing distributors have a strong focus on the retail market and we don’t have anyone aggressively targeting the SMB market even though we do have products aimed at that space.”

“We have agreed in essence that Aptec will cover the Gulf region with the exception of the UAE. Aptec has placed its opening stock order and a member of staff will travel to the UK to go through training on Belkin products,” he added.

Belkin is keen to build up a distribution model with minimal overlap in the MEA region as it continues to expand its channel reach. Van Rensburg believes that the MEA region offers tremendous opportunities for growth for Belkin.

“I believe there is huge opportunity in the market for us. We are putting in a lot of effort to create more brand awareness and generate product interest. Wireless technology is taking off and many people are interested in this space," continued Van Rensburg.

"Belkin also has many products focused on the audio-visual sector — there is a buzz in this region about setting up home theatre and home entertainment systems so that is another market we are very excited about trying to capitalize on,” he added.

In total, Belkin has a portfolio of 12,000 products. The vendor is paying special attention to key lines such as wireless networking products, audio-visual products and areas such as voice over IP in the region. ”