Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006
Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006 |
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Marketing
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Strategy Blaupunkt to withdraw from cassette decks market Mayur N. Shah
Mumbai , Aug. 15 Gone are those days when a music aficionado would take the pain to clean the roller of his car cassette deck to listen to pure uninterrupted music. Some manufacturers of car cassette decks are planning to withdraw from this market. With 5 per cent market share left in the car audio segment and novel technology like MP3 introduced in in-car entertainment, Blaupunkt, the car audio division of Mico Bosch, is about to become the first company to discontinue its range of cassette decks for the local market. Mr Ajay Sahney, Deputy General Manager, Blaupunkt, said the company has distributed its last set of cassette decks to its nationwide dealers and hence shall concentrate on its range of MP3 players in the domestic market.
Sony, Kenwood
Other players such as Sony and Kenwood still wish to keep their own range (two models each) present in the market. Officials from both the brands (Sony and Kenwood) say that there is still a small market in the semi rural and rural areas for such car audio systems. Though there is a marginal difference of Rs 1,000 between cassette decks and single-din MP3 players across major brands, prospective customers in those areas are more prone to cassette decks and still prefer them. Their inability to adapt to the new age MP3 players makes it lucrative enough for players such as Sony and Kenwood to keep their existing range. Today, the car audio segment is a Rs 650-crore market where 8-lakh units are sold on an annual basis; of which 16-18 per cent (Rs 270 crore) comprises the official and organised market with brands such as Kenwood, Sony, Blaupunkt, Alpine, JVC and Panasonic present in the country. According to Mr Sahney, the market is growing at 9 per cent and is expected to touch 11 per cent in the coming years. Blaupunkt is known to have launched models based on famous city names like Bremen, Hamburg, etc. It has for the first time, introduced a model dedicated to Mumbai with its namesake. The new model, `Mumbai MP 26', is the base model across its range of MP3 players priced at Rs 7,750.
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