On the heels of a strong year in the region, Lexar Media has plans to step up its New Zealand exposure with a new distributor and a sponsorship of the upcoming New Zealand Sevens rugby event.

The company recently added Cellnet as a distributor and has plans to talk to the NZ Post about selling USB devices after the success of a similar program with the Australian Post.

“New Zealand is an important market for us, and we are continuing to grow in New Zealand,” said Leslie Adams, Lexar Media’s VP of Worldwide Marketing.

Despite the downturn in the economy the last year, Lexar’s consumer research has shown that consumers are still buying, just buying more carefully. In order to reach consumers, Lexar Media has undergone efforts to increase point-of-sale information, packaging and merchandising in order to make it an easier sell for key retailers.

“We would say that we’re the only company that is helping the retail partner actually sell the product effectively to the consumer,” Adams said. “We don’t just sell a product, we sell the marketing that goes with it to help the account sell the product to the consumer.”

But despite growth, Lexar would like to better expand into the market by doing more business across a broader set of product lines with existing partners in addition to a few new outlets for products.

“We think we can do more in New Zealand and do plan for some growth in the region,” Adams said.

Lexar Media’s three areas of focus are USB, photo and mobile storage devices and they recently introduced a USB backup product named Echo.