Latin America. With the strategy of seeking to expand its commercial range in the industry, Merlin Distributor is including its distribution offer of the professional broadcast and Pro AV line with which it has found a leading position in the market.
It now introduces its distribution division for the AV product line, with the support of manufacturers such as Panasonic, JVC, Canon, Datavideo, Aja Video Systems, Telycam and Tascam, companies with which it has been successfully developing the audiovisual market in Latin America.
The AV industry is vast and is made up of many sub-categories; And with the passage of time the line that separates them becomes thinner and thinner. Thus, as technology advances by leaps and bounds and the options to reach audiovisual content increase, traditional TV is transformed, and is adapting to new ways of producing material but at the same time consumers in the way they watch it. Now more than ever, AV technologies are being combined to serve various market segments and increasingly complex AV solution requirements.
Edson Marion, CEO of Merlin Distributor states: "Merlin is always looking to offer an added value and differential in its services. To date, it has had significant growth with the brands and solutions in the portfolio, mainly aimed at serving the broadcast market" – adding – "Taking advantage of this moment of growth, we want to take advantage of the synergy for the development of other aspects within the AV industry, which is very competitive but is growing and is full of new opportunities and challenges".
Manufacturers join Merlin
As an example of the outstanding work being carried out by the master distribution company in the region and the goals achieved with all of them during the past year in sales, important manufacturers with whom they have been working have decided to join this initiative of Merlin Distributor, giving their approval and support so that together they can develop this new business area. already having a clear work plan and developing it with the wide range of resellers with the account throughout Latin America, a key piece for the master distributor of the success they have been maintaining in the market.
Rodrigo Costa, Panasonic's sales manager, said: "Merlin is adding the development of the AV line to its business and Panasonic has decided to work together with the idea of adding this new market for them, offering our technologies to the entire market and continuing to position our brand in the region."
Fabio Zuccaratto Migotto, Canon's Broadcast & Cinema Manager, PIS – Professional Imaging Solutions: "Merlin Distributor is a great business partner of Canon with many years of experience in the market and helping us to introduce Canon's high-tech equipment to the most varied AV markets, as a result of its commercial consistency. sales and marketing strategies always in the right direction" – expanding – "Canon and Merlin, in the Pro Business, have been showing significant growth in the categories of Cinema, Lenses, ProVideo, PTZ, Monitors and Mirrorless year after year, so we are also proud in this new business area that they will carry forward to continue working with them".
With TASCAM having a wide range of products including media players/recorders, audio and video recorders, multitrack recorders, portable handheld/field recorders, digital recording consoles, mixers and audio interfaces, along with podcast and streaming products, Dante processors or installation products providing a spectrum of professional solutions with the highest quality, Joe Stopka, VP of Sales and Market Development at TASCAM said: "Merlin Distributor has a strong base of distributors as well as video integration partners throughout Latin America, having an enviable reputation for being a strong organization that provides very high quality service to its customer base throughout Latin America and Central America" – stating – "Looking ahead to 2024, we look forward to having our brand everywhere, giving customers the opportunity to see, touch and experience TASCAM in the right way."
For Sergio Constantino, General Manager – Latin America Operations at JVC: "The idea is that, with this new A/V Division of Merlin Distributor for Latam, it will be possible to promote more strongly our line of camcorders, PTZ cameras, monitors, among other products, allowing JVC to increase its market share in the region." – Focusing on JVC's A/V product line – "Today we have a good penetration in camcorders and monitors, but we understand that it is possible to expand the volume in these segments. In addition, we want to increase the penetration of the PTZ camera line, for which we are already working on a new pricing strategy for the market since last month."
Looking for an explanation for this trend that both the A/V and Pro A/V markets are increasingly intermingling, Constantino tells us: "Over the last few years, the technological differences in products and investment funds in both markets have had a significant reduction, causing them to intermingle. Faced with this scenario, JVC's product line becomes very competitive, as it has an attractive cost, associated with a large amount of integrated technology."
Manny Rosado, Territory Manager and Field Specialist of AJA Video Systems assured: "Merlin Distributor has been managing AJA's business in Latin America, and they have done it as a master distributor who deals with an entire region, which includes different countries and markets" – highlighting – "They have really significantly grown AJA's sales in Latin America, So I'm sure they're going to have a very good race during 2024, growing our presence even more than they did last year."
For his part, Ricardo Santos, Datavideo's Regional Sales Manager for Latin America, added: "This change on the part of Merlin seeing the A/V market as well and that is very good for us at Datavideo because today our company has 80% of our products for this market such as integrators or installation, so this decision by Merlin is excellent news for us" - being clear that more products of the brand will be arriving in 2024 in this line - "For all these reasons, our expectations are to develop the Latin American market much stronger together in this segment and I am sure that the development of this AV market together with Merlin is going to be exceptional, having a very good 2024 ahead of us."
Telycam, a manufacturer focused on R+D that specializes in medium and high-end PTZ camera solutions, with which it has also been developing the Latin American market with Merlin Distributor, also joins this initiative of the master distributor, stating Aaron Xia, CEO of the company: "Telycam is delighted to make this partnership with Merlin Distributor, thus expanding our sales channels in Latin America, clearly knowing their position in the market and that they are in perfect alignment with the roadmap outlined for the future by Telycam."
Expand team and support
Already outlined together with the different manufacturers that have joined the initiative, Jorge González, sales manager of Merlin Distributor explains about the strategy to be carried out by the master distributor: "We want to be prepared for this step, and we understand that to achieve this we must invest and make important changes so that the value proposition makes a difference. First, we are diversifying the portfolio with new solutions to empower the corporate and education market. We have been very active in discussing with manufacturers to strengthen and expand our line up of brands and make it available to our customers and the audiovisual industry market.
Victor Dupret, Latam Account Manager of Merlin Distributor for the development of this new area within the company, also participated. González says: "Next, we are aware that in order to support the range of opportunities we need to strengthen the commercial team in order to raise the quality of the proposal with a greater component of technical knowledge. Experience in multiple areas and specialties. The Latin American team now has a pre-sales engineer who will be providing all the tools and help to our business partners so that this collaboration results in the optimization of operations and accelerator of closure of a greater number of projects. In addition, as a first, we are incorporating Luz Dary Mora to the LA team, who has extensive experience in the development of product channels, with extensive experience in managing them in the areas of technology and the audiovisual industry. Our growth expectations are very aggressive and with the passion that the team will imprint on it, we are sure that we will achieve the objectives and those of our customers as well." – Stating the executive of Merlin Distributor – "It is needless to mention about the plans we have for this year, where we will execute an even more aggressive plan of seminars and accompaniment to partners for the development and positioning of brands in Latin America, including presence in the most important Trade Shows throughout the region".
Who is Luz Day Mora Rincón?
Before coming to Merlin Distributor, Luz Day Mora worked at the company ViewSonic as Territory Sales Manager, and has a vast experience in the professional market in the audiovisual area of more than 16 years, previously holding executive positions in companies of the caliber of Barco or Panasonic.
Based in Colombia, she will be working as a sales executive attending all the channels of the master distributor, aiming to be the pillar in the development of new channels for the company in the region, already started working on this task making visits to cities such as Bogota, Bucaramanga and Medellin, focusing on these trips to be visiting new accounts and business partners, validating the profile of each possible new channel in the areas of professional audio and video that are added, in addition to seeing with them how Merlin Distributor together with the brands it represents for the region can contribute to the development and growth of the businesses of its partners, being an arduous task since there are many integrators working today in the market, "In this way, we validate Merlin Distributor's philosophy of always being present hand in hand with all its partners in Latin America, supporting them and accompanying them together with the factories we represent throughout the process of the projects developed by our channels, and not just as a simple equipment supplier," concludes González.
Photo: Jorge González, Luz Day Mora Rincón and Víctor Dupret from Merlin Distributor.
