Jackpot in Las Vegas : Trade Show Pays Off for CMS; 6 Foreign Contracts Landed
High-technology companies have been known to question the value of participating in industry trade shows because of the expense they entail. But CMS Enhancements hit a jackpot when it attended the recent Comdex show in Las Vegas.
The Tustin-based manufacturer of data storage products and other parts for personal computers laid the groundwork for several major international sales at this year’s Comdex, said Allen G. Taylor, vice president of marketing.
On Wednesday, CMS announced six foreign contracts that will boost its annual revenues by $26.1 million--an amount equal to roughly a quarter of the company’s sales of $100.2 million for the fiscal year ended June 30. Most of the six were arranged as a result of discussions at the 1987 Comdex show.
Taylor said the contracts will expand the company’s international business significantly. Foreign sales accounted for less than 5% of CMS’ revenues last year.
“One thing that we found very surprising was the tremendous amount of interest we got from international distributors” at Comdex, Taylor said. “People in the rest of the world are becoming more computerized, and as they do so, they require the kind of storage products CMS produces.”
The contracts are with six distributors that will sell CMS’s complete line of products in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, West Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Latin America.
