Canon launches 'wonder-dozen' to capture 40% market share 

As part of a strategy to capture 40 percent market share in India, Canon India, a 100 percent subsidiary of Canon Singapore, has floated seven stratagems, which includes the launch of 12 next-generation 'wonder-dozen' products in India. 

Canon India has also inaugurated a Care Center in Chennai with five technicians. This is the first care center in Chennai and the fourth in India with two being in Mumbai and one in Delhi. This exclusive care center will offer service by providing instant repairs. The reseller community as well as the end user can place an order or query through their network also. Following a franchisee model, Canon will be coming up with 40 more Care Centers in 2002. 

Motoyasu Ishii, Director & General Manager, Consumer Imaging and Information Group, Canon Singapore Pte Ltd said India contributed three percent of the group's market share in the South East Asian region. With the intention of rebuilding the market they have identified seven main areas which will help them build the market here. The identified areas firstly includes building an organization comprising of 28 members that can support channels through out the country, appoint territory managers for every State and regional managers for every region.

The company intends to shift from national distributors to regional distributors to avoid conflict and gain more focus, create four channel programs to focus on box sellers, corporate dealers, assemblers and retailers, launch brand campaign through all media including television to create awareness and establish emotional connection with consumers, launching new products at a time when they are launched internationally, expand the quality of service by setting care centers, roll out promotion and customer contact through exhibitions, road shows and consumer promos. 

"Whether we have won the battle, not yet. Whether we have built grounds, we have. Next six months would be sharpening the saw, sharpening the way we execute the programs," said Alok Bharadwaj, General Manager of Consumer System Products Division. According to Alan Grant, Managing Director, Canon India Pvt Ltd, the delay in gaining grounds in India resulted because it was only in July 2000 that the Government of India allowed them to trade in consumer products as Canon India. 

The 12 "wonder-dozen" products launched by Canon forms part of their getting aggressive in the Indian market by enlarging the product portfolio. This is for the first time that Canon is entering into the projection device space and also introducing the first flat bed digital Multi-Functional Peripherals in India under Rs 50,000. The line of products includes six multimedia projection products, two imageCLASS Multi-Functional Peripherals (MFP), three bubble jet printers and one scanner. The S2100SP printer for the first time comes with a photo printer and incredible vivid photo technology. This option brightens the picture. S2100SP does not use photo ink; instead it makes use of ordinary ink with photo quality. Says Alok Bharadwaj, "This has been done to make the product economical." The product is priced at Rs 5,995. "We want to enlarge our product portfolio even into the image capturing space. This market is a market of 10,000 projectors a year. We target 5 percent of the market share. This is not a price sensitive market but service and quality sensitive market. While being competitive we will not be offering the cheapest prices," he added. 

Nisha Kurian

(CNS)