LG Electronics India Pvt Ltd (LGEIL), the 100% subsidiary of LG group of Korea, has decided to shift focus from home appliances to high-end GSM mobile phones, laptops and flat plasma display panels. This will bring about “a disproportionate growth enabling LGEIL to attain a top line of Rs 16,000- 20,000 crore by 2010 from Rs 9,500 crore at present,” according to managing director Moon B Shin.

He said LGEIL’s marketing strategy would undergo an evolution with advertising based on product reliability, which it has not done before. The company will also project LG as an aspirational brand.

LGEIL has earmarked Rs 322 crore as ad spends for 2008, which, Shin said, would be a formidable increase. The company has renewed talks with the Internnational Cricket Council (ICC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to use cricket as an instrument of growth.

Till 2006, the company spent 95% of its advertisement budget on cricket. However, the company’s allocation for cricket came down during the 2007 ICC World Cup with 40% of the total ad spends allocated to other sports.

“Everybody in the industry is competing on price but LG will take just the opposite route to establish its products as more premium than ever before. There is a huge opportunity in the high-end of the market and we will offer customers to step up at a premium, ” Shin said.

Although LG would not pull out of the CDMA, it would switch over to the GSM as the mainstay of its mobile business, Shin said. While the demand for CDMA phones is growing at 1-1.5% per annum, it is 10% for the GSM ones.

LGEIL, with a product portfolio of consumer electronics, home appliances, IT products and mobile handsets, commands a market share of 26%, the highest among the electronics goods producing companies, followed by Samsung’s 17% and Whirlpool’s 7%.

Shin said the company, after evolving the new marketing strategy, expected a 25-30% growth year-on-year compared with 17-18% it has witnessed this year.

LGEIL will contribute around 5% of LG’s global turnover of $40 billion this fiscal ending December.

Shin said that LGEIL would double its capacity by the end of 2008 from 5 million units at present. The company would invest Rs 165 crore in its Noida and Pune plants at a 60:40 ratio, respectively. This expansion will be able to feed the demand growth for the next 4-5 years.

The travel to LG’s Noida plant was sponsored by the company.