INTERVIEW
RIDING THE INNOVATION WAVE LUCAS JIANG, GENERAL MANAGER –MEA, TP-LINK, SHARES IMPORTANT BUSINESS MILESTONES IN THE REGION.
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an you tell us how your brand has evolved over time and kept up with what customers demand? TP-Link was founded almost three decades ago in 1996, and we started our venture in Middle East and Africa market in 2011. TP-Link MEA started with strategising and investing in intelligent efforts towards structuring the SOHO and SMB solutions in the Middle East. As a result, we built a passionate and dedicated team, fostering strong relationships with distributors and channel partners, and continually supporting our customers with a comprehensive product porfolio and solutions. We have worked tirelessly throughout the year to build a sustainable ecosystem of strong partnerships with our distributor partners and resellers. As a result, we can keep up and even ahead of our consumers’ demands by ensuring operational stability and unfailing quality. Our main strength is independent research and development, which makes TP-Link master the core technology and react rapidly to market changes. We are among a few wireless networking companies that operate in-house manufacturing facilities to maintain the standard of every component. Our R&D team has decades of experience, and the combination of supporting facilities ensures complete quality control. We thrive in the region as we have a local subsidiary and warehouse for fast delivery and technical support. We offer highquality products with perfect pre-sales and after-sales technical support and a limited lifetime warranty. We also offer advanced technologies for the SMB market, including Omada Cloud SDN, Omada Wi-Fi 6, and 10G / Multi-Gigabit. In addition, TP-Link is
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CXO INSIGHT ME
JANUARY 2022
moving forward and investing in the future, including 25G / 40G / 100G Switch, 100G SFP Module, Firewall, Wi-Fi 7, Surveillance, AI, and Big Data. We make sure that all our partners across the Middle East and Africa, who have invested in our brand are getting the best from that investment, effort and commitment that we value so much. During the pandemic also, we have introduced new technologies and products, and as a result, the brand acceptance for TP-Link in the networking segment in MEA has been phenomenal. Can you share some of the business highlights from this journey? We are consistently ranked by analyst firm IDC as the number one provider of Wi-Fi devices, supplying distribution to more than 170 countries and serving billions of people worldwide. With a proven heritage of stability, performance, and value, TP-Link has created a portfolio of consumer and SMB networking and surveillance products, along with Smart Home and IoT technologies. There have been many occasions of success in the past years, but I can share some interesting ones from across the globe with you. TP-Link has continued to achieve significant growth worldwide and consistently offers a comprehensive
portfolio of enterprise products and solutions to businesses of any scale and various scenarios. Not only in MEA, customers from across the world also choose TP-Link. For example, our customers include Al Mansoura Hotel Qatar, ICAD labour camp Abu Dhabi, COVID facility centre Abu Dhabi, Ramee Hotel Oman, Shangri-La hotel, Telefonica ProFuture Foundation, McDonald’s, and Russian Railways. You might find it interesting that the Russian railway is one of the top three railway companies worldwide, and TP-Link has installed 10000 plus APs and switches in the carriages to provide full Wi-Fi coverage for passengers. Even hotels of various categories on the famous shopping street of Malaysia have chosen the TP-Link Omada solution. We are proud to share that people rate these hotels with a Wi-Fi score of 8 or more, clearly indicating that the Omada solution brings customers an excellent Internet experience and improves the customer’s experience and the evaluation of the hotel. Most of our achievements stem from our working processes that always work per our ‘FARE’ principle (Functional, Advanced, Reliable, Easy). We take great pride in offering complete process services, right from site survey, training and certification, comprehensive product supply, network deployment, and support and warranty. What are some of the top networking technology trends to watch out for in 2022? The biggest networking trend is riding on Wi-Fi 6E that will pick up pace this year as the latest advancements are increasingly opening up resources in areas like AR/VR, 8K streaming, and other future innovations. Nowadays, most houses have a dual-band wireless router, which broadcasts both 2.4GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi signals. However, these routers mostly overlap because the 5Ghz channels are very limited, which leads to tremendous 2.4Ghz and 5GHz wireless interference between neighbors. However, 6GHz has seven 160MHz channels, which means there will be no overlapping as long as you select a different channel from your neighbour. 6GHz wireless is designed to resolve overlapping and interference problems, providing you with the best 4K/8K streaming, gaming, and high-speed downloading experience.
