Even Gauteng comes to Cape Town for their Apples

Digicape was declared the top South African Apple Dealer for 2005 by national distributor Apple IMC late last year. The award is based on number of CPUs sold during the period.

"The award was a significant morale booster for us, especially since figures were tallied prior to both our busy December period as well as the launch of our Digimate online ordering website," explains Robin Olivier, director of Digicape.

The Digicape website signed 434 members in the first 25 days of operation who placed more than R300 000 worth orders in that time.

"What was of particular interest to us was that 33% of our members are from outside the Cape Town region, and of that, 25% are based in Gauteng. This is great news for us as 63% of the national market is based in Gauteng and we are finally tapping into that. More particularly, it shows that they are choosing a Cape based dealer to shop with. This bodes well for our aggressive national growths plans over the next few years," Olivier explains.

Digicape has also signed a number of big corporate deals in the last quarter, none of which were included in the figures used to judge the dealership award.

"Digicape has been working hard on our corporate side and we have had an enormous amount of interest in the Apple professional products from academia. The team's reputation for fast and efficient service has converted this interest into record-breaking deals in the last quarter," says fellow director, Gaynor MacArthur.

The retail division of Digicape has only been in operation for two years and Olivier points out that none of the senior management comes from a retail background.

"The outlet is continually morphing, finding what works and what doesn't. Our flexibility and level of innovation is key to our recent success. We intend maintaining our position within the market and, by innovating ahead of the curve, we believe we will stay ahead of the competition. We have taken a leaf out of Apple Inc's book and while others remain risk averse we take the opportunities where we see them," Olivier concludes.