Canon opens its first retail station in Gujarat

Canon has announced that it has extended its retail network across the
country by inaugurating a ‘Canon Retail Station’ in Surat. The outlet (CRS)
is located at President Plaza, Opp Jeevan Bharati School (UG-18) and is a
one-stop shop for Canon customers to sample products, from Canon’s digital
imaging portfolio prior to making a purchase decision.

The recently inaugurated Canon Retail Station in Surat, is Canon’s 16th
retail point in the country. With the recent intro-duction of digital cameras in
India, there will be a logical ext-ension for these retail stations to display
digital cameras and demonstrate Canon’s direct camera printing technology.

Expressing happiness at the inauguration, Alok Bharadwaj, Director and GM,
Consumer Imaging and Information Division (CIID) and Volume products, Canon
India said, "Gujarat is an extremely important market for us. This is
evident from the fact that Canon enjoys a 40 percent market share in this state.
We have emerged as the number one player in the BJ printer cat-egory in
Ahmedabad and Baroda with a market share of 46 percent and 35 percent
respectively, as per IDC Octo-ber 2003 report."

Elaborating on the premium customer experience that will be offered at the
Canon Retail Station, Bharadwaj said, "Canon retail outlets are designed to
provide a complete shopping experience for customers look-ing at purchasing our
digital imaging products such as printers, scanners and consuma-bles. This
customer-centric approach, when combined with our superior product portfolio,
gives us an unbeatable value proposition and makes us the vendor of choice for
potential customers."

The Canon Retail Station Program was launched in 2002 and as part of this
initiative, Canon has so far established 16 exclusive Canon Retail Stations and
501 Canon Retail Points (non-exclusive) in A, B and C class cities across the
country. The opening of Canon’s Surat Retail station marks the launch of Canon’s
first retail station in Gujarat.

The other fifteen Canon Retail Stations (CRS) in India are located at Jaipur,
New Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Agra, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kanpur, Indore,
Kochi and Guwahati.

DQW News Bureau

Surat