Channel Best-Sellers: Peripherals

Data from The NPD Group/Distributor Track pegged APC's U.S. dollar volume share for power supplies sold through distributors at 80.7 percent in 2006, up from 79.7 percent in 2005. The vendor was also the top growth best-seller for this category, increasing its share by 1 percentage point. Second-place vendor Tripp Lite grew 0.7 percentage points between 2005 and 2006, from 7 percent to 7.7 percent of the market.

Rounding out the Top 5 best-sellers were Powerware, with a 3.5 percent share; power-related products from IBM, with a 2.6 percent share; and Belkin, with a 1.2 percent share. The NPD/Distributor Track monitors sales through certain distributors, including members of the Global Technology Distribution Council.

Paul Hays, president of Athens Technology Partners, Athens, Ga., said APC's stature comes down to product excellence. "It's because of two things, one is the technology behind it and the second thing is they stand behind their warranty," he said. When a squirrel jumped onto the wires leading into an Athens customer's building, an APC surge protector exploded, bearing the brunt of a 44,000-volt surge. The computers connected to it were unharmed, but the device was destroyed. APC was quick to replace the device, he said.

Eric Winterhalder, president of ETL Solutions, a San Diego-based VAR and consulting company, echoes Hays' assessment of APC's products.

"They're the gold standard in the industry of power conversion conditioning. There are several other players, like Tripp Lite, but in terms of quality of equipment in general I think APC is the leader," he said.

The growing prevalence of data centers has most likely spurred growth for APC, as well as the simple fact that it has been in the market for some time. "Their marketing at least in the last year or so has been driven pretty heavily on that end from what I can see, on data center infrastructure and that sort of thing," he said.