The Hindu Business Line : `Indian switchover to flat TVs will be faster'

THE key to growth in the consumer electronics category would lie in offering technologically advanced products at an affordable price. "The colour television (CTV) market transition in India to flat panel televisions would be faster than people think," said Mr David Steel, Vice-President, Convergence Marketing Group, Digital Media Network Business, Samsung Electronics.

Mr Steel was in the Capital to attend a seminar on `Emerging technologies & trends in consumer electronics sector' organised by the Consumer Electronics & TV Manufacturers' Association (CETMA).

He revealed that with the growing demand worldwide for liquid crystal displays (LCD) and plasma display panels (PDP), Samsung is making significant investments in the categories. The company will pump in $2 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) in setting up an LCD TV plant in Tangjung in South Korea. The company will also invest ``a few 100 million" dollars to ramp up plasma TV production in its plant at Cheonan in South Korea, he told Business Line.

He said globally the LCD TV market is expected to grow to 30 million units, grabbing 15 per cent market share of the total CTV segment by 2007. The industry target for PDP TV globally is seven million units by 2006. Samsung Electronics currently has a 20 per cent share in the LCD TV market worldwide. In the plasma TV market, the company has captured a 14 per cent share globally.

According to Mr Steel, for TVs up to 29-inch colour picture tube (CPT) variants would still hold the dominating share in the market in the near future. But for 30-35-inch TVs the LCD variants will hold their own with CPT variants. Customers will increasingly switch over to plasma TVs in case of 40 inch and higher size variants, he predicted. Currently, the LCD and plasma TV market is minuscule in India at 7,000-8,000 sets a year. The company would focus on increasing the market size of this segment this year, he said.

Samsung India is extending its existing DNIe range of flat panel televisions to include its 50-hertz flat televisions in 21-inch, 25-inch and 29-inch screen sizes in a month's time. Samsung India had introduced its complete range of DNIe technology products including LCD, Plasma and LCD projection televisions in the Indian market in January.

Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) is a set of four advanced image processing technologies that makes TVs, including various types of displays such as LCD, PDP, projection TV produce clear and detailed images.

Speaking on the company's investments in research & development (R&D), he said, it would be investing around $3.3 billion for R&D activities globally this year.

Meanwhile, Samsung India will invest another $5 million in its software research and development centre at Noida this year to develop software applications for products such as digital TV and plasma display panels for global consumption. The company, which has set up this centre in 2002, has already put in $12 million in R&D, including research into hardware, a company spokesperson said.

Further, it also proposes to increase the manpower at its R & D facilities in Noida and Bangalore (which mainly develops software for the telecom industry) to almost 1,000 this year. "Developing a software strength in India will lead to more television and home appliance entertainment applications," Mr Steel pointed out.