Sony plans 50% growth in Diwali

Sony India is banking heavily on the festive season around Diwali to bolster its business in India. Sample some of the numbers being touting around: the company plans to grow its topline by 20% from the Rs 6,330 crore it did last year. Out of this, Rs 7,500 crore (approximate) they are targeting for the year, the company plans to garner Rs 2,850 crore from the festive season (September-November) only. This is an ambitious 50% increase over their last year's festive season sales. The initial signs have been promising with Sony doing well in Kerala during Onam; there are healthy signs in West Bengal before Durga Puja too with Sony business growing there by nearly 50% in the last few weeks. And the real push is expected to come all over during Diwali.

Extending warm festive greetings, Kenichiro Hibi, MD, Sony India, said, "Diwali is one of the biggest and most celebrated festivals in India and Sony plans to make this Diwali even bigger and brighter." Little wonder then that Sony has allocated marketing budget of Rs 150 crore during October-November period, primarily for 360 degree multimedia campaigns for BRAVIA, Cyber-shot, Xperia Tipo and Handycam.

There will be increasing focus on VAIO notebooks business too. While it contributed 20% to the overall business last year, the share is expected to remain the same this year too-that translates into a 20-25% increase in the notebooks business. More ambitious are plans to make Sony the #2 notebook brand (by market share) in the consumer space, from the current #3 position, revealed Shoji Ohama, manager, IT sales and marketing, Sony India.

With an increasing focus on the b2b space throughout Sony India (number of senior personnel handling b2b has increased from 1 to 6 last year), the notebooks business too is not being left behind. Informs Ohama, "We plan to target SMB b2b selling aggressively from JFM onwards and are accordingly planning separate marketing campaigns." There is an obvious realization that the existing channel more adept at handling the consumer space might not be best suited for the b2b space and therefore newer partners are being brought into the fold. Currently about 60-80 partners are handling both the consumer and SMB businesses for Sony India.