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Mercury to stage a comeback with Caltron

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DQW Bureau
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Avishek Rakshit

Planning to stage a comeback in the eastern upcountry markets, Kobian has recently appointed Caltron as its regional distributor for the East from this month. In a decisive move to focus on the upcountry markets in the East besides the regular metros, the company is targeting to tap in the potentials majorly in Bhubaneswar and Ranchi, where coincidentally, Caltron has a strong market recall. Kobian has also set up service centers in these locations as a measure to enhance post-sales services.

“We selected Caltron primarily on the basis of their market reach and the channel partner base in upcountry. In our endeavor to concentrate on the class-D and E cities, Caltron is a valuable channel partner,” said Malay Ghosh, Zonal Manager (East and North-East), Kobian. The agreement was signed in March this year. However, the official announcement was made early this month with the new shipments in the Mercury and iXA range coming in. Kobian has been following the national distribution model so far with Salora, Inspan and Digital Waves as its NDs.

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Although Kobian declared that it has been strong in the metros and the urban markets, the company, at the same time admitted that it has so far been losing heavily in upcountry primarily due to its insufficient reach and market penetration. “At this moment, Caltron will be distributing TFTs, motherboards and speakers. After two months or so, an evaluation will be made and we can thereafter decide on the future of the venture,” Ghosh added. Further, Kobian is on an experimentation mode with the RD model. “We are considering the effectiveness of the RD model and based on the performance of the new strategy, we might consider appointing new RDs in the rest of the country. This is a testing phase for the strategic plan of Kobian as well besides enhancing our upcountry focus,” Ghosh elucidated.
This calendar year, Kobian is on an aggressive marketing mode with its channel partners and hence has introduced various incentive schemes to maximize sales. “We offered IPL tickets at Eden Gardens to partners against target achievements in the Mercury motherboard scheme titled Mercury Carnival 2010. The fiesta continues with Merc Fiesta 2010 which is a point-based scheme running currently where we are offering consumer electronic takeaways on purchase of Mercury and iXA products,” Ghosh concluded.

Recently, Kobian has also launched the Upcountry Direct Initiative allowing upcountry customers to directly log on to the company website and register the product or any complaint. Also, a toll-free helpline number has been put into place signifying the serious attempt of the company to penetrate into upcountry.

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