First-time event champions retail channel in Southeast Asia; Keynote speakers COURTS, ELECTROLUX and INTEL stress the power of customer experience

BANGKOK, THAILAND /SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 26 March 2019 - GATESConsumer Channel Summit, Southeast Asia concludes at the Centara Grand Ladprao inBangkok with over 250 top executives from the consumer technology industry. In just its first year, GATESSummit brought together leading channel partners from 10 countries across theregion for over 1200 pre-scheduled 1-on-1 meetings with senior executives frominternational technology brands.

Ben Tan, CEO at Courts (Singapore), speaks at GATES Summit

GATES Summit was supported by ETERNAL ASIA, KONCEPT C andTOSHIBA as Platinum Sponsors; PHILIPS and PROMATE as Gold Sponsors; and DIVOOM, MY FIRST and STM as Silver Sponsors. Singapore'sleading technology trade promotion association, SG TECH, supported a delegation of Singapore-based brands to meetSoutheast Asia's top retail channel partners at GATES Summit.

GfK MARKETINSIGHTS served as Knowledge Partner and openingkeynoter at GATES Summit. Events partners also speaking at the conferenceincluded COURTS, ELECTOLUX and INTEL. Dr. Alok Bharafwaj, Managing Director at CREOVATE TRANSFORMATION and moderatorof the panel discussion, summed up the common themes of the summit:"transformation, technology and tomorrow."

Ben Tan,Country CEO at COURTS Singapore, said in his keynote address: "Today's consumerexpects the best of both worlds, speed and experience, and we aim to deliverthe best of all platforms. Physical and online stores are both important. Thechallenge is how to integrate both channels seamlessly."

Organizers of the 3-day event expressly focused onSoutheast Asia's burgeoning consumer technology channel, inviting theretailers, etailers and distributors who specialize in serving these markets.In addition to a showcase of innovative products and solutions targeting thebusiness channel, the GATES conference program aimed to address their criticalinformation needs.

The panel discussion, titled "Top Channel Voices," featured seniorexecutives debating the challenges and opportunities for Southeast Asia'schannel partners. "Technology and information are making the customer more powerful,"said Doan Viet Dung, CEO at ShopDunk (Vietnam), who stressed the importance of maximizing thein-store experience. Ajay Mohan, Marketing Director at Intel, stated it more directly: "Customer experience is the new brand!"

AshishKapahi, Executive Director at GATES, said: "There is real power in partnership. All channelexecutives who took part in the panel discussion referenced, in some way, theneed to work together to solve problems and build win-win relationships. This wasundoubtedly a main theme at the GATES conference in our first year, and itdemonstrates just how important our platform will be for the channel communitymoving forward."

GATES GIVES INNOVATORS AN EDGE

GATES Summit provided a springboard fornew-to-market vendors to expand their retail reach. Participating exhibitors PADMATE, KOKOON and SILENTMODEall completed successfully crowdfunding campaigns in the past year and usedGATES to build out their distribution channels now that they are "ready forretail." Padmate was ranked as most-backed and most-funded tech product onIndiegogo in 2018, raising over US$ 3.3 million.

RickeyXiong, SalesDirector at Padmate, says: "Wehave backers from more than 130 countries for PaMu Scroll. Now we are settingup retail channels to reach customers in stores, with a great product and withaffordable price. At Padmate, we will continue to lead the way and plan aseries of new launches in 2019."

GATESSMART PITCH provided vendors an opportunity todeliver a 90-second elevator pitch for their latest product or solution onstage. This informative and entertaining session featured three awards, withwinners chosen in real-time through electronic voting by the audience ofchannel partners.

SMART PITCH Best Design: UB+

SMART PITCH Best Innovation: Promate

SMART PITCH Game Changer: Mobile Pixels

SMART PITCH Best Presentation: My First

GATES hosted the prestigious ICT Industry Excellence Awards 2019 at the Gala Dinner. Throughlive electronic voting, channel partners recognized vendors for theirexceptional channel performance in Southeast Asia over the past year. The GATES Gold Awards honored participatingvendors at the event. Award winners include:

ICT INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE AWARDS

1. DELL was voted COMPUTING Vendor of the Year
2. APPLE was voted SMARTPHONE Vendor of the Year
3. APPLE was voted DIGITAL LIFESTYLE Vendor of the Year
4. SAMSUNG was recognized for MARKETING EXCELLENCE
5. SAMSUNG was honored for OUTSTANDING OVERALL PERFORMANCE

GATES GOLD AWARDS

6. PROMATE was voted MULTICATEGORY vendor
7. PROMATE was voted ACCESSORIES & PERIPHERALS vendor
8. UB+ was voted AUDIO vendor
9. TUCANO was voted CASE, BAGS & PROTECTORS vendor
10. PROMATE was voted top INNOVATOR among vendors
11. OAXIS was voted GAMING & GADGETS vendor
12. WD was voted HARDWARE vendor

GATES Consumer Channel Summit, Southeast Asia was held 20-22 March 2019 at theCentara Grand Ladprao in Bangkok. For more information, visit www.thegates.biz and follow on Twitter @GATES_Summit

About GATES APAC Pte. Ltd.

A leader in industry channel ecosystems, GATES helps facilitate acceleratedgo-to-markets for organizations across Technology Verticals through strategyand sales. Based in Singapore, GATES has built an extensive network of channelsin the APAC region, addressing some of the fastest growing markets in theworld. GATES hosts events including CONSUMER CHANNEL SUMMIT (retailers,etailers and specialist distributors) for Southeast Asia and BUSINESS CHANNELSUMMITS (system integrators, resellers and value added distributors) forIndonesia, India and Vietnam.