In an interview with The Financial Express, Tarun Thadani, national manager printers, Canon India said that the company which had made a late entry into the Indian market about three months back hopes to capture a sizeable chunk of the market by the year end. ``We plan to sell 40,000 units by the year end,'' said Thadhani.

The total size of the market for inkjet printers stands at 2,40,000 units in 1999 as predicted by International Data Corporation. According to Thadani, Indian printers are growing at 42 per cent and there is plenty of space for a third entrant after HP and Epson which are leading players as well. ``Capitalising on its brand name, Canon India is confident of increasingits unit share in this market soon. This will compensate for the short-term disadvantage of making a late entry into the Indian market,'' he said.

The marketing support will be enhanced with the existing two distributors Wipro and Redington.``We are also working on vendor relationships and are in an advanced stage of finalising a strong computing vendor. Adspends will be doubled to maintain the brand equity,'' said Thadani.

The company had recently received an FIPB approval for marketing Canon inkjet printers in India. ``In support we intend to build a long-term view of the market through establishing strong fundamentals. This will be possible by increasing channel network, distribution network, hardware support and infrastructure,'' the national manager added.

Roadshows have contributed to addressing the market spread more effectively. ``Our objective is to keep prices down by at least five per cent compared to our competitors to capture a significant part of the market. The intention would be toprovide more value-for-money to the wide range of customers. This is being vindicated by providing for a more feature-packed product,'' he added. Towards increased marketing, Canon India also plans to make investments in training personnel and advertising for printers.

Some of the next generation features in the pipeline include waterproof printing, photo realism and internet enabled printing. Thadani said that the company plans to target the middle income group with increasing disposable incomes. Canon India as part of its roadshows in almost all major cities in India including the last at Calcutta last week was showcasing its range of products in specially designed booths with a line promising, ``there's a Canon for everyone.''

It had tied up with Compaq for providing solutions for its roadshows.