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Richa Mishra

NEW DELHI, Sept. 2

IN an effort to meet the growing challenges in the price-competitive consumer electronics segment, Sony India Pvt Ltd has chalked out a clear strategy to strengthen its position. The company hopes to exit the current fiscal with a turnover of about Rs 750 crore (last year Rs 600 crore).

"We hope to achieve around four to five per cent increase in our market share," Mr Teruo Ishii, Managing Director, Sony India, said. Talking to Business Line, Mr Ishii said that "the consumer electronics market in India is very price-sensitive. Keeping this in mind, we have aggressively priced our 21 inches colour television sets."

Elaborating further, he said the 21 inches model HA21M80 was priced at Rs 18,990. For the last seven years that the company had been in India, it had been seeing consistent growth, Mr Ishii said.

"For the first four to five years, the growth has been tremendous, in two digits. But for last two years the growth has been slower," he said. Explaining this, Mr Ishii said that with market expansion, the consumer electronics category has been experiencing tremendous competition. By 2000, the market was flooded with an array of brands, in turn creating a price competition, he added.

On the question of why Sony India was maintaining a low profile as far as brand visibility was concerned when compared to its competitors, Mr Ishii said, "We are trying to become more visible now and this strategy is in keeping with the company's premium line of products.

"The consumer electronics market in India is mainly dominated by CTVs and hi-fi audio market. Together these two segment comprise 85 per cent of the total consumer electronics segment," Mr Ishii said. The market for home theatre, DVD, handycam and digital camera were relatively smaller compared to Hong Kong and Singapore, he said. However, Sony India had seen a growth of more than 10 per cent in handycam. The growth in traditional categories had been less, he said.

Apart from focussing on its flat TV segment, the company has launched a whole new X-treme series - a range of VCD hi-fi with MP3 playback. It also intends to launch new models in the DVD hi-fi and home theatre segment during the festive season. The new introduction will include five DVD in hi-fis in the price range of Rs 30,000 to Rs 75,000 and three home theatre systems priced between Rs 22,000 and Rs 35,000.

Commenting on the recent trend of the consumer electronics companies to capture the semi-urban market, Mr Ishii said though the products from the Sony stable were top-end, the company was strengthening its base in the semi-urban regions also.

"We are, however, not into any price war. Sony would rather talk about quality than quantity," he said. For making its products more visible the company is aggressively promoting the Sony Corner's in the multi-brand shops, apart from giving Sony World (one brand shop) a face-lift and organising road shows. In continuation of its image-building exercise, the company was also organising "Exhibition Kit" in the major cities, he said.

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