Starting out from the spare bedroom of a Panmure apartment in 1992, Chinese migrant Guang ‘Pat’ Huo has created New Zealand’s largest computing and IT retailer, which has become the go-to place for consumers, businesses and the education sector.
Ranked as one of the country’s top 100 businesses with annual turnover in excess of $400 million, PB Technologies operates 11 superstores and retail centres as well as dedicated wholesale, commercial, education, online, and service divisions. It is also the country’s largest PC builder/assembler and IT service centre, with more than 100 engineers among its 600 staff.
The popularity of PB Tech was amply demonstrated during the 2017 Black Friday discount day when 40,000 customers smashed previous sales records by spending more than $10m in just 10 hours. Since opening its doors 25 years ago PB Tech has served more than one million customers and supports more than 90,000 businesses and 1300 schools with their IT needs.
The company ethos of keeping costs low and passing savings on to customers has underpinned its success. As the company website proclaims, ‘Our ability to consistently offer low prices across our large range is a result of our significant local purchasing power and strong supplier relationships …. we are always listening to what our customers want so we can set about delivering it in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible.’
Based in a 3.4ha head office and distribution centre in Manukau worth $25 million, PB Technologies has also done what Australia’s Dick Smith couldn’t – survive the sometimes brutal competition that exists in electronic retailing.
Indeed, when Dick Smith collapsed in 2016, PB Tech snapped up its vacant New Plymouth premises, with Huo declaring that he had twice as many staff as Dick Smith. "We do not go into the big malls," he told the Taranaki Daily News. "We save a lot on costs. We save the money not for ourselves but for our customers."
A motherboard repairer in China, Huo left for Australia after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. On a brief visit to New Zealand in 1991 to renew his visa he stayed with friends in Panmure where he struggled to start an upstairs repair business before getting a lucky break creating advertisements for the Trade & Exchange magazine. The rest, as they say, is history.
In the early years Pat was supported in the accounts department by his wife Brenda, hence the company name PB Tech and he is still hands on as head of purchasing. As a migrant he is justifiably proud of the employment opportunities created by the business and appreciates the diverse cultural backgrounds of his staff “because they bring a lot of benefits to my company.”