The dwindling sales of cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions have forced Sony India to exit the segment completely. The company, which had stopped selling CRT televisions in India in October last year, is now expanding the LCD range to garner a bigger market share.
?It is estimated that LCD television sales at Sony will grow by 60.7% in 2009-10 at 4,50,000 units as against the sale of 2,80,000 units last year and this will help us to increase our market share to 30% as compared with 28% last year,? says Masaru Tamagawa, managing director, Sony India, while speaking at the launch of new series of Bravia. Sony India, on Wednesday, launched five series of Bravia and 14 new models priced between Rs 16,000 and Rs 2,99,000.
?It was around Diwali last year that we decided to stop selling CRT TVs in India in line with Sony’s global strategy and now as Sony is focusing more on LCD screens, we are on the verge of exiting the segment completely,” he said. LCDs accounted for 21% of our television sales in 2008-09 and it is expected that in the current fiscal, it would account for 57% of our total sales in the country, he added.
According to Tamagawa, the television market size in India is expected to increase by 50% in the current financial year at 15,00,000 units vis-?-vis 10,00,000 units.
While Tamagawa refused to divulge the company’s plans for 2009-10, he said Sony India would largely focus on Bravia, for which the company has earmarked an investment of Rs 60 crore for 2009-10, followed by another new product in the same category next year. This would be in addition to the Cybershot cameras, digital music devices and play stations that would be part of the company’s growth strategy in India.
?With the new Bravia, the company will invest Rs 60 crore in marketing of the product and a small part of it will also go into expanding the company’s brand outlets in the country to 300 as against 250 last year. This would be above the already over 1,500 sales points in the country, including tier-II and tier-III cities,? says Tamagawa.