NetGear Partners for Asian Wi-Fi

NetGear has teamed with Legend Group in China and Softbank BB in Japan to sell Wi-Fi products, an effort to increase sales in Asia–the world’s second largest market for Wi-Fi networking gear. The company sees the Asian market as a major opportunity to improve its position worldwide. Japan, China and South Korea are the top three countries in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of gear sales, according to research firm Synergy Research Group.

NetGear’s distribution deal with Softbank is exclusive in Japan, with Softbank reselling 802.11g and 802.11b based wireless products, such as routers, client cards and USB adapters, through retail stores and system integrators.

In China, Legend and NetGear are co-branding wired and wireless products for the small office, home office–or SOHO–market in retail stores. One possible complication in the Chinese market is a security specification, called Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI), that the government expects all Wi-Fi related equipment to comply with in order to be imported into China or manufactured or sold there. Continue >>