From the chairman’s desk: Q3 in South Africa

11 October 2017 Editor's Choice News

The Association of Representatives for the Electronics Industry (AREI) hosted a business breakfast on the 31st August 2017 at the Kyalami Country Club.

We were fortunate to have Pavlo Phatidis as our guest speaker for the event and with sponsorship assistance from Trade and Investment KwaZulu-Natal (TI KZN) represented by Donnée Kruger, AREI attracted a decent audience of approximately 130 stakeholders in the electro-technical sector.

Pavlo’s keynote message to business owners and entrepreneurs was to adapt to the current economic conditions by offering solutions to one’s clients. His analogy of business owners constantly jostling between the engine room and the bridge of a ship gave many a clear perspective of how they were running their businesses. Phatidis backed up his message with several case studies where entrepreneurial businesses had managed to weather challenging conditions by being innovative and collaborating with other businesses to provide solutions.

To complement Pavlo’s address, Donnée Kruger introduced TI KZN and presented a concise summary of the initiatives that they were promoting, specifically in the electro-technical sector. Johan Kok, a young entrepreneur, also introduced an electronic educational product that he calls Seebox.

Attendees had the opportunity to network between the speakers and it was encouraging to hear that business sentiment was generally positive.

The latest statistics echo the positive sentiments that were experienced at the breakfast. In Rand terms, the TAM (total available market) numbers declared by the distributors (DTAM) in the first half of 2017 were up by nearly 2% on H1-2016, and 4% higher than the second half of 2016. Normalised to the US Dollar, the DTAM for H1-2017 is up more than 28% on the first half of 2016, due to a strengthening of the Rand and increased sales in logic, analog and power devices.

The positive sentiment is also supported by the South African Chamber of Commerce (SACCI) Business Confidence Index (BCI), having manufacturing as a component of the statistics, which is up from an average of 93,6% in the first half of 2016 to 95% for 2017.

The committee will carry on working on the strategies that we defined in 2016 for the last quarter of this year, with particular focus on increased membership, engagement with government and other associations, and engagement with educational institutions.

AREI’s mission remains to grow the South African electronics industry through collaboration. As we build momentum with our strategy, we believe that we offer our members substantial value for their annual fees. Should you be interested in joining the Association, please contact Jenny Gooding on +27 (0)11 462 3256 or email info@arei.co.za

Warren Muir

Chairman, arei

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