Power Conditioning

APC wins for the second year running, ahead of Emerson. The rest of the field is also the same as last year, with Numeric retaining the number three spot, followed by DB Power and Compact.

The big difference from last year is that APC has consolidated its position, increasing its lead over Emerson, from 59 index points to 77 index points this year. As a result, the gap between Emerson and the rest of the players has reduced from nine index points last year to two this year. So, while APC is consolidating its position, the rest of the brands are fighting it out for a smaller share of the market pie. This is further borne out by the 'Others' row in this year's brand-switch matrix. Maximum shift from here will be to APC. This is sharper than last year, where the move from others to APC was 9 percent and to DB Power and Emerson was five percent each. If we remove this aspect, the biggest change worth noting is that Numeric, which last year was loosing brand share to 'Others', is now in a fight with APC for market share. This year's trend shows Numeric loosing 17 percent to APC as compared to 13 percent last year to others. DB Power also seems to have consolidated its market play in a similar fashion, loosing brand share only to APC this year.

2003

This market has many regional and niche players and the top five are the only players with a footprint that can even remotely be called national and multi-vertical. All this augments the picture drawn out earlier. Once a brand reaches a certain minimum threshold level in this market, it comes up against APC as the only realistic competitor. Right now APC has too large a lead across geographies and across verticals for any of the others to launch a full attack on it. The way out for them seems to be what Numeric and DB Power are doing-stay focused on selected regions or verticals.