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With display manufacturers becoming
more and more focused on LEDs, manufacturers' commitments for LCDs
seem to be on the wane. LG appears to be phasing out its LCD
monitor line, shifting its emphasis to LEDs completely by H1 2012.
In an exclusive interview with The
DQWeek, Sanjoy Bhattacharya, product group marketing head,
India said, “LCD monitors continue to die off, hopefully by the end
of H1 2012, we will be completely out of our LCD monitors range,
wherein the entire industry will be shifting from LCD to LED display
by Q3 2012. Having said that, we still sell 20% of LCD monitors
range. In fact as per our planning, we will discontinue the
production of LCD monitors by Q1, but we will keep some trade stock
available until Q2 2012.”
Moreover, for monitors and optical
drive product line, LG is shifting all its gears to deeper pockets of
towns. Currently, its dealers are present in 1,200 towns, which the
company will be expanding to 2,000 by adding another 800
semi-urban/rural towns in July 2012. Apart from this, LG will be
putting focus to do more dealer management programs.
“Our focus over the next couple of
years is to increase penetration in small cities. For this, we are
spending 1% of our revenue on System Builders Development Officer
(SADO). Over the past 6-8 months, we have deployed 175 on-field
people and their job is to engage with the system builder community
in small cities and towns in order to understand their needs, and to
equip them with training on system building and LG products.
Moreover, we are looking at adding 300 more SADOs," he added.
LG has grown quantity-wise by 12 %,
in-spite of the last quarter of 2011. Also, its monitors business has
de-grown in top 5 cities like Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Kolkata.
On its newly introduced notebook, LG
remained slow to lure metros, but it has gained unexpected response
from some of the pockets like Rajasthan, Orissa, Mumbai upcountry,
Punjab, Gujarat, Coimbatore, Madurai, etc. Thus, the company has
identified these cities for a pilot project and will be exclusively
hiring manpower and putting investment on marketing resources to
drive its notebook business. Likewise, it will get into 20 new
markets for the notebook.
Another product line in which LG is
making its foray is ultrabook category. LG is scheduled to launch its
two models of ultrabooks in the mid of March, 2012. The company will
be rolling out its Intel based ultrabook in top 9 cities through
large format retailers.
“We will be focusing high on
ultrabooks, our strategy is to focus on top 9 cities- Delhi,
Gurgaon, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Ahmadabad, Pune, Bengaluru,
and Chennai. We will be doing a big buzz on ultrabooks which would be
available at the price point of Rs 70,000. With our ultrabook range,
we intend to become leading player in the ultrabook category. In the
first phase, we will cater to LFRs, but channel will get it in the
Q2,” highlighted Bhattacharya.
The company has also deferred its plans
to introduce its printer range. After ultrabooks, LG will also launch
Mouse Scanner, a portable scanner with OCR technology. Lastly, in
line with its corporate strategy, LG India will be integrating its IT
business under the umbrella of home entertainment.