Pureview sets up Indian operations

A new joint venture company–between Funet of Taiwan and
Pureview of India–by the name of Pureview Technologies Pvt Ltd has set up its
Indian operations and is planning to launch a range of products including LCD
monitors, notebooks, plasma screens and LCD televisions.

Based in Mumbai, it has already launched its range of LCD
monitors, which will be the main focus in the beginning. "The LCD monitors
have just been launched and our main aim is to offer them at the price of the
CRT monitor. We want to bring down the prices of all the products 1.5 times
compared to market prices. This is possible because our manufacturing facility
is now at Sri Lanka and under the free trade agreement between SAARC nations,
one can avail the benefit of cost and also bring down the replacement period to
a maximum of 48 hours," elabora-ted Dhananjay Shah, Director, Pureview
Technologies.

Added Frank Kuo, Director, Pureview Techno-logies, and also
representing the Taiwanese counterpart of Pureview, "With the kind of price
advantage we have, we are getting aggressive in the Indian market. It is also
one of the emerging markets after China and in the SAARC region, India is a
strategic area of focus for us."

Pureview is also planning to launch its range of notebooks in
another 45 days. The vendor is looking at a low cost AMD processor-based
note-book at a price lower than Rs 30,000. The rest of the products–plasma and
LCD TVs–would be launched in another three months.

The channel network for Pureview has been set up with four gold
business partners, which is equivalent to regional distributors and below them
60 premium partners across India. For the after sales service, the company has
appointed Bradma as its national service provider, which has 43 service
locations in India.

"In fact, Pureview engineers from Taiwan would be coming
down to train the engineers at Bradma from April 2, as this would be esse-ntial.
Bradma is already a service provider for IBM’s LCD range of monitors used for
its point of sales. For channel partners we have already planned channel
motivation programs called IT Parties, which will start first in Vadodara next
month," said Sudipto Mukherjee, Country Manager, Pureview Technologies.

Pureview is also looking at the corporate segment and has
already added seven value-added resellers in Mumbai and will slowly add more
across the country.

On enhancing the brand value, the vendor has made specific plans
of brand promotion. "For channels we are already starting programs like IT
Parties and for end-users we will be looking at exhibitions and in time at
retail outlets," added Shah.

The company is inves-ting $ 3.3 million in India, part of which
has gone in the manufacturing facility, as it had to pay $ 1,50,000 to the Sri
Lankan government. The rest has gone towards building up the working capital,
visibility process and other activities, which are in the pipeline. The vendor
has its offices presently in Mumbai and is planning to set up a base in Delhi
and Bangalore too. They also have plans to set up base in Kolkata at a later
stage.

In time, Pureview also plans to bring out a buy-back scheme
where the customer can exchange the CRT for a LCD monitor. One of its other
major plans for the future includes bundling its LCD monitors along with AMD
based PCs for local assemblers. Shah also claimed that it plans to capture six
percent market share and be the fourth player after the giants in the LCD
monitor business by the end of 2004.

Nancy Sudheer

Mumbai