• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Mr R. Zutshi

K. Giriprakash

Bangalore, March 25 Consumer electronics’ giant Samsung is increasingly moving away from launching products straight from its global portfolio in India to customising them for the domestic market.

“One of the focus areas for Samsung in 2008 will be customising the product range to meet the needs of the Indian market,” Samsung India Deputy Managing Director, Mr R. Zutshi, told Business Line. Samsung has set itself a target of achieving a 30 per cent increase in sales to about $1.7 billion for 2008.

Mr Zutshi said the R&D capability in India had evolved to such an extent that for some of its television models, it has developed features based on the Indian customers’ preference such as listening to audio with display off, reducing volume to half with one touch and channel grouping. It has also worked on white goods portfolio, customising the products to suit Indian customers.

Mr Zutshi said the company also plans to drive penetration of its various segments into tier-II and -III cities. For example, Samsung plans to increase its home appliance channel penetration to around 40 per cent from 28 per cent.

In February alone, the company more than doubled its sales office network to about 47 branches across the country.

Mr Zutshi said the company has set up a new division for its digital mobile business, which was till recently being handled by regular Samsung sales team.

The division plans to tap the photographic channel and large format retail stores for its digital mobile products. It expects to grow its MP3, digital still camera and digital camcorder volumes by over 400 per cent each. It also plans to retail its digital mobile products through its network of Samsung branded stores and increase ‘Samsung Plazas’ by 85 stores to 200 stores.

During the current year, Samsung will launch full HD (high-definition) camcorders and full HD still cameras in the Indian market. These digital products have the capability of recording high definition videos and still images, which can then be connected to high definition displays.

Samsung is also planning to introduce its NV24 HD — a 10 mega pixel point-and-shoot digital camera capable of shooting high-definition video.

It is considered the world’s smallest, 24-mm ultra-wide angle,10 mega-pixel digital camera. The NV24HD can record videos in 720p high-definition at a maximum frame rate of 30 frames per second. This product is expected to be launched during the second quarter of this year. Samsung also plans to strengthen the existing line of digital still cameras during the year.

More Stories on : Strategy | Consumer Electronics

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Customised Samsung products to push sales

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line