Maxtor eyes the burgeoning Indian consumer electronic market

resent for last two years, this third largest HDD player in India is looking
at the new emerging market– Consumer

Electronics, which is poised to be Rs 40,000 crore in India, by 2007.

With consumer spend-ing becoming the new engine of growth in Asian countries
and some one billion middle class consu-mers residing in Asia, Indian market is
also growing at a fast pace. Right now, stan-ding at Rs 15,000 crore, Indian
consumer electronics industry might more than double to touch Rs 40,000 crore
over the next four years according to reports by Consumer Electronics and TV
Manufacturers Association, which translates into a CAGR of 13 percent
approximately.

With this mammoth growth in site, Maxtor Corporation is eyeing a pie of this
burgeoning Indian consumer electronics market. "This is just the tick-off.
We expect Indian market to make huge contributions in world’s consumer
electronics industry," said Felix Law, Marketing Manager (Consumer
Electronics), Maxtor.

According to him, it is hard to say right now, when will be the right time to
invest heavily in Indian market, but he feels that Indian market is yet to show
a considerable jump. Law said that Maxtor is in midst of working on various
things, especially in the OEM market. It has 50 OEM tie-ups worldwide for HDDs
with consumer electronics manufacturers and content and service providers like
Sony, DirecTV, Panasonic, Thomson, AOL-TV, etc. It also has its own con-sumer
research and product development to develop con-sumer electronic products with
HDDs.

With its patented tech-nology–QuickView, Max-tor plans to target the
Personal Video Recorders (PVRs), set top boxes and DVD recorders with HDD in
built. According to the company, this technology enables an instant access to
television programming, movies and songs.

Talking about the targets for India, Law said that Maxtor has about 75
percent market share in this segment, second to Seagate and will try to maintain
similar numbers in India with various OEM tie-ups. "Right now, we have the
challenge to gauge the acceptance of these products and the growth of the
market, once they are lucid we will come clear with our strategy in India,"
he concluded.

(CyberMedia News Service)

Shweta Khanna

New Delhi