FEATURED: Toshiba launches “Go Africa” strategy in Rwanda
Thursday, May 17, 2018

With the rapid expansion of big data and personal contents like photos, videos, music & movies, Toshiba sets the pace in developing storage solutions for Big data and Personal Storage.

Toshiba Gulf FZ (TGFZ), through its "Toshiba Channel Connect Event”, launched its game changing technologies incorporated in NAND Flash memories and BiCS Flash with 3D stacked cell ( 3D Flash Memory)structure as part of the ‘’Go Africa’’ Strategy in Kigali.

The launch gala that took place on May 15, 2018 was hosted by TGFZ along with its distribution partner M/s Mitsumi, at Marriot Hotel.

These technologies provide building blocks for storage not only in smartphone, tablet & PCs but also increasingly for data centres, server farms with its SSD (Solid State Device) –the infrastructure that sustains our data and personal content driven society.

Mitsumi is a distributor with deep rooted infrastructure and experience in Africa while Toshiba is also a strong player in the enterprise business solution and their TGFZ’s tie-up is more than a decade old, which started with Toshiba Notebook PC business.

In order to connect with the African market, TGFZ has conducted many road shows in various countries on the continent.

 According to Mr. Santosh Varghese GM Digital products and services at TGFZ while officiating over the launch, Toshiba is always involved in research for better products and this time they have extended the road shows and Toshiba products to Rwanda.

Santosh Varghese Vice President/General Manager of Digital Products and Services, Toshiba Gulf FZE, said "We’re happy to launch our ‘’Go Africa ‘’ initiatives in Rwanda to enhance customer experience for Toshiba Storage products.  We are offering the latest technology and product by empowering our channel partners with the necessary product and sales skills’’ he said

"Every year Toshiba focuses its research and development investment for creating substantial solutions that solves social issues. Use Innovative technologies to create substantial product offering high level functionality, quality and cost competitiveness and now we are here in Rwanda” said Santosh

The firm plans to conduct regular product roadshows, sales and technical skills training for local business partners’ staff, focus on channel development and channel health and most important introducing the latest product and technology in line with the global launch.

As part of TGFZ’s ‘’Go Africa ‘’channel strategy, the company intends to focus on in country operations to develop respective markets.

"Our brand requires our direct presence and we are unlike other brands who handle Africa through remote operation, Toshiba’s "Go Africa” strategy is to have an in country reach. This is time for Rwanda and it is our pleasure to conduct and promote our products here. We are targeting to reach out to approximately 80+local channel partners and Rwanda with its good economic climate is the ideal place for us” says Santosh

He also went on to add ‘ Africa being an untapped market, it is an emerging market here with the level of education  coming up and spending is ever increasing and it is for this reason that we decided to start the’’ Go- Africa’’ project.

Approximately, 38 African countries from East, West, North and South are managed directly by the TGFZ team. The company has a market share of 30% within MEA region. Toshiba has also pioneered in the NAND business.

As a technology company, the firm foresees the 950 million populated African continent, with the high number of smart gadget users along with the 3G/4G and internet penetration will help the Toshiba storage business to grow in multifold in the coming years’’ said Santosh Varghese.

Toshiba, a 142 year old company with the DNA of innovation, has its Hard Disk Drive business since 1967.

Since then Toshiba has led the industry for over 50 years and succeeded in making its product more compact with higher capacities.

In the year 2004, Toshiba was awarded the Guinness book of World records for making the smallest HDD in the world – 0.85” in size.

As the latest innovation Toshiba has achieved a surface recording density of 2.34Gbit/mm2 per pater.

It is the 2nd largest NAND producer in the world. The new semiconductor type "Flash Memory” innovated in 1984 has revolutionized the storage industry.

Major industry leaders in "wearable devices” and "servers” use Toshiba NAND as their storage. As part of promoting this segment TGFZ and Mitsumi participated in Secure-Expo- Kenya-Nigeria (Jan-March-2018) and showcased its strength in this segment.