By James Wells

SYDNEY: After being unable to offer the margins retailers required, Samsung Electronics Australia has announced it has stopped selling notebook computers in the retail channel in order to concentrate purely on the local commercial channel.

Samsung Electronics Australia confirmed the move in a statement sent this afternoon to Current.com.au

“Samsung has stopped selling notebooks in the retail sector to focus solely on the commercial channel, meaning the company’s notebook products will no longer be sold through retail partners like Harris Technology, Bing Lee and Dick Smith,” the statement said.

“The retail channel previously made up about 20 per cent of the vendor’s overall notebook sales,” the company said.

“The result of these changes will see Samsung notebooks available exclusively through the commercial channel.

“Samsung IT has not ruled out a return to retail at some stage in the future. Samsung will also continue to sell other IT product lines such as monitors, printers and external IDE drives through mass merchants.”

According to Samsung IT national sales manager, Joe Serra, the decision to leave the retail channel included the inability to offer sufficient margin to some dealers.

"The issue for us is sustaining a competitive advantage. It was difficult to maintain the margins mass merchants were after," Serra said.