Altec gets aggressive in India

S Gopikrishna Chennai, Sep 14

The world is going digital. Riding high on the digital boom, US-based Altec
Lansing is going all out to become the most popular brand in the Indian market,
across the product categories. The company, which recently restructured its
channel policy, is now in the process of appointing more partners, mainly in
upcountry markets. “We are adding more than 100 resellers in the current
program and will work closely with the channels to drive our business. We are
working out various channel programs which include incentive schemes,
performance-based remuneration system, product training (information), demo
support and more,” said Jessica L Chua, Regional Marketing Director - Asia
Pacific, Altec Lansing Technologies Inc.

Chua is leading these initiatives from the forefront for Indian market and
working closely with Rashi Peripherals and Trifin Information Technology Pvt
Ltd, who are the two distributors here. While Trifin takes care of north and
east regions, Rashi will address the south, west and central part of India.

Altec Lansing would be launching six new models in India shortly to meet the
growing demands here. According to Chua, “India is also fast catching up with
the world market in terms of trends.  Digital
boom is very much visible here and revolution is happening on the PC front, MP3
players and cellular phones, except for flat TVs which is yet to pick up
here.”

The company is betting on both metro and upcountry markets for growth and
performance.  “We are not only
looking at A and B class markets but also C and D where the potential and buying
power is high. In fact, some of our high-end products like IM9 were first sold
in Hubli and other upcountry markets,” she said.

Rashi Peripherals, which currently has 45 branches in the country, is
expanding its reach through 100 branches in the next two years. “Our expansion
program will directly help Altec Lansing to reach more number of cities/towns in
the country. Rashi will be driving the end-user programs for Altec,” said
Sachin Kadam, Product Manager, Rashi Peripherals.

Altec Lansing has about 30 product skews, mainly divided into four categories
- such as powered audio, portable audio, personal audio and interactive audio.
Powered audio is a major revenue earner contributing about 70 percent to the
total turnover, and speaker systems starting from 2.0 to 5.1 come in this
category. Altec is enjoying a good market share in PC and MP3 speaker systems,
while getting aggressive in satellite radio, telecom and home AV systems. It
will work with non-IT channels too in the coming months.

Altec Lansing speakers are available in the price range of Rs 550 to Rs
15,000, covering all four categories.