Gateway Shuts Down Australia & New Zealand Sales

Media Release From: Gateway

GATEWAY SHUTS DOWN AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND SALES, MAINTAINS CUSTOMER SUPPORT

SYDNEY, 29 Aug., /MediaNet International-AsiaNet/-- Following a global review of operations, leading US-based PC vendor Gateway has announced the immediate cessation of sales and marketing activities in Australia and New Zealand, although support and warranty programs for existing Gateway customers will be maintained.

According to Gateway vice president, Asia Pacific, Mr. Sam Weiss, the Asia Pacific regional closure announcement is among several market withdrawals being announced internationally by Gateway.

Speaking from Gateway regional head office in Sydney, Mr Weiss said: In the overall context of rapidly changing PC market conditions, Gateway undertook a company-wide operations review on a market-by-market basis during August 2001 which focused on seeing how we could implement our solutions strategy to grow and be profitable in all target markets.

Regrettably, the company has concluded that it will not be able to invest the necessary resources to achieve this result in Australia or New Zealand. We are therefore ceasing sales operations here.

We are today announcing the closure of Gateway operations in Australia and New Zealand. From a sales and marketing point of view, the closure is effective immediately. All 18 Gateway stores throughout Australia and New Zealand are now closed.

No further orders will be taken. Customers who ordered in the last 14 days will be eligible for a full refund and we will be contacting them to ask them whether they want to proceed with their order.

Support, warranty and parts services will continue so existing customer support will be maintained. Customer support services will continue without interruption through existing third party service providers already providing Gateway customer support in Australia and New Zealand.

Staff Redundancies

About 200 Gateway employees are impacted in Australia, with a further 19 in New Zealand. Most will leave Gateway within the next few days. All employees including all regional managers are impacted. All were advised of the closure at company meetings this morning.

All affected employees have been offered a package of severance benefits which in every case exceeds the legal requirements in Australia and New Zealand, Mr. Weiss said. Gateway is working with an outplacement organisation to provide a full outplacement service. This includes training to help employees with CV preparation, assistance in identifying job opportunities and dealing with job loss.

Regional Manufacturing Facilities

As part of the regional announcement, Gateway is simultaneously closing its manufacturing plant in Melaka, Malaysia.

A total of about 430 jobs will be lost in Singapore and Malaysia as a result of the closure in South East Asia. About 400 of these are directly related to the Melaka manufacturing facility in Malaysia, with 28 Asia management staff based in Singapore.

Issued by Gateway Asia Pacific, 6- 10 Talavera Road, North Ryde, NSW, Australia 2113. Telephone 61 2 9641 2000.

For further information on Gateway global restructuring announcements see the Gateway.com website.

ENDS

© Scoop Media