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LG aims to beat Samsung in monitors by 2002

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DQW Bureau
New Update

Asim Raina & Preety Raheja


New Delhi, Feb 14

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LG Electronics India Ltd, the wholly-owned subsidiary of the Korean conglomerate LG, is all set to take on Samsung in the monitor market by 2002. According to Rajeev Saxena, Assistant GM (Computer Peripherals), LG India, the company is aiming to displace Samsung from its numero uno position in monitors before the end of calendar 2002.

Alongside, LG is targeting to push six lakh monitors in calendar 2001 as compared to three lakh, which it claims to have achieved in calendar 2000, which itself was a growth of 100 percent over 1999. This in turn will help the company to cross the Rs 500 crore in revenue in 2001, which would be a growth of 150 percent over the Rs 200 crore achieved in 2000. In the process, the contribution of IT division to LG India's total revenue would double to 20 percent by the end of 2001 from the current 10 percent.

On its part, the IT division has lined up various strategies to achieve this target. It plans to consolidate its dealer network across the country. LG has close to 2,000 dealers all over India, but more than 80 percent of LG's business is done by top 200 to 250 dealers. At present, all its dealers carry multiple brands and it has no exclusive dealers. The company now plans to have much better counter share among its partners. It is working out schemes, which offer better returns to its dealers and channel partners. "We are going to stress on Return On Investments (ROI), which in anyhow is much better in LG's case than any other company," claimed

Saxena.

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Further, LG is getting very aggressive on the advertisement front for its brand recall and visibility. "One area where we need to improve a lot is the visibility and the mindshare factor," he admitted, while comparing with Samsung.

Elaborating more on brand building exercise, Saxena disclosed that monitors used in the Govinda hosted game show on Sony's `Jeeto Chappar Phad Ke' are none other than LG monitors. In addition, another game show Sawaal Dus Crore Ka, hosted by Anupam Kher and Manisha Koirala on Zee, also had LG monitors. "We might capitalize on this to push more sales for our monitors," he conceded.

Exclusive LG showrooms for IT products are also on the cards. "There would be around 10 exclusive demo centers for LG products all across the country." 

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As of now, monitors would be the main focus area for LG. "Other products would piggy-back on them," confirmed Saxena. At the same time, attention will also be given to other products like CD ROM drives, DVD ROMs, CD writers etc. In fact, it is targeting 100 percent growth in CD ROM drives. In 2000, LG achieved volumes amounting to two lakh in CD ROM drives, which should at least double to four lakh in 2001.

Subsequently, LG has extensive plans to launch notebooks in India and other parts of Asia by June 2001. The company will have a separate distribution network for the notebooks. "We plan to choose partners who have been supplying to the corporate customers," elaborated Saxena. "Our main focus would be the corporate segment which till now has not been tapped by LG." LG is an OEM supplier to IBM for ThinkPad series in Korea where notebooks are sold co-branded as LG-IBM. With this, LG would enter the notebook arena in India too with its own brand.

Another interesting product which LG plans to launch within the next couple of months is Internet monitors which have recently been developed by its parent. With these monitors, the user can directly surf the Web without having to use a CPU.

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The details of this product are currently being worked out.

As part of its expansion plans, LG has set up a manufacturing unit at NOIDA for assembling monitors. "This manufacturing unit would ensure much better control in terms of inventory management and hopefully cost," said Saxena. Production is scheduled to commence from May.

Earlier handled by the LG liaison office, the company decided to set up its own IT division last year and commenced business in March. After the formation of subsidiary, LG India started selling directly to distributors in rupees to maintain price parity in the market. Also, advertisement and promotional handling were taken over by LG to avoid any disparity in the promotional

programs.

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