Leading food biggies and consumer durable manufacturers are set to make hay while the Indian Premier League (IPL) is on. The 45-day long event, starting April 18, is expected to boost the sales of food giants like Dominos and Pizza Hut by 30-33% while those of colour televisions is expected to go up 25-27%, something similar to what had happened a year ago during the ICC World Cup.
?Events like cricket are a celebration time in India and on such occasion families and friends get-together. As a result, the consumption of junk food, including pizzas and burgers, goes up. As a result we expect our sales to jump by 33% during the IPL matches,? says Nirula?s senior vice-president (marketing) Sudipta Sen Gupta.
Also, with families keeping away from the kitchen, pizza giant, Pizza Hut is optimistic of doing a good business in home delivery services this time. ?Last year during the Twenty 20 World Cup, our sales went up by 25%. A similar growth is expected this time also as 30% to 40% of our business comes from the home delivery segment,? adds Anup Jain, managing director, Pizza Hut.
No different is the story for consumer durable manufacturers. ?With IPL round the corner, Samsung has increased its focus on event marketing. This coupled with the fact it will shortly launch its new range of LCDs, we expect to register 30% growth in the second quarter starting April,? says R Zutshi, deputy MD, Samsung India. ?Large cricket events have always provided fillip to sales of colour televisions. People are actually expected to prepone their purchase of CTVs to coincide with IPL, as had happened during the World Cup last year, and this is expected to boost the growth of the segment vis-?-vis first quarter,? adds V Ramachandran, director (sales and marketing), LG Electronics.
?There is a growing trend of putting up flat panels and LCDs at hotels and restaurants in order to enhance footfall during big cricket matches and IPL being no different, volumes are expected to go up by 25-30%,? says an industry expert.
