Festival push: Consumer electronics majors report spurt in sales

Sanjay Sardana in New Delhi

The marketing push given through promotional schemes and gift offers to the lacklustre consumer electronics has yielded positive results for the industry.

On the back of brisk volumes, consumer electronics majors like Samsung, LG Electronics, Philips, National Panasonic and Sony have reported a surge in their revenues during the festival or Diwali month ended November 15, 2001.

The growth of consumer electronic companies has been led by a spurt in sales of colour televisions, refrigerators, air conditioners and microwaves to an extent. For companies like Sony, leader in the audio segment, sales of audio systems have been satisfactory and boosted the company’s revenues.

While Samsung India spent over Rs 15 crore during the month for its ‘Phod ke Dekho Offer’, LG Electronics spent a whopping Rs 25 crore during the past one month in promotional activities including advertising and free gifts.

National Panasonic spent close to Rs 3 crore in its consumer promotion offer—scratch the card scheme—a gift scheme, which offered a free gift with every purchase.

Philips spent close to Rs 4.5 crore during the past one month. This has resulted in a 30 per cent growth in volume of CTVs and audios through launch of new products including the MP3 players and other promotional activities.

“National Panasonic’s scratch the card scheme clicked for us and resulted in a 35 per cent growth in volumes and 40 per cent growth in value over the corresponding period last year. The growth was primarily led by CTVs, audio systems and home theatre systems,” said a company official.

During the festival month between October 15 to November 14, LG Electronics reported an overall growth of 43 per cent over the festival month last year (October 2000). Its revenues during the month at Rs 297.15 crore was up from Rs 208 crore reported last year.

For LG, CTVs provided bulk of the sales at Rs 157 crore followed by refrigerators (direct cool and frost free) at Rs 54.9 crore, washing machines (automatic and semi-automatic) at Rs 31.96 crore and air conditioners at Rs 19.36 crore.

While sales of CTVs was up 93 per cent, frost-free refrigerators, air conditioners and vacuum cleaners recorded a growth of over 60 per cent for LG Electronics.

Samsung’s sales preceding Diwali this year grew by over 28 per cent over last year’s corresponding period and is expected to close the period with sales of Rs 275 crore. While Samsung’s CTV sales grew by 46 per cent, refrigerator sales grew by 25 per cent and microwave ovens by 52 per cent.

“Samsung launched the ‘Phod ke Dekho’ offer between October 15 and November 20, 2001, to optimise sales of its consumer electronics and home appliance products during the festival season. Our promotion entailed gifts with purchase of every Samsung product. The ground level activity was part of our effort to sustain the momentum that had been built up for the promotional scheme,” said a Samsung official.