Nikon India is on a roll and has achieved another milestone in its country expansion plans.

In a bid to achieve higher sales growth and increase its contribution to Nikon?s overall global revenues, Nikon India, a 100% subsidiary of Nikon Corporation, has added a distributor in Jammu and Kashmir. This completes the state wise and city wise distribution set- up for India set by Nikon last year.

Further, the imaging-technology leader is laying an impetus on building a strong service delivery network. It has planned to set up over 21 ?Nikon Authorized collection centres? in 21cities across 14 states, a major milestone in its expansion plans in the county. Added to this, there are 18 well-established, authorized Nikon service centres, to which three more will be added by year-end.

While announcing Nikon India?s aggressive business plans for the next quarter, Mr. Hiroshi Takashina, Managing Director, Nikon India said, ?Nikon has never been so as much aggressive in India as it is now. We start to earn returns of what we had initially invested in terms of time, money and energy in market research, product development and innovations. There has been continuous evolution both at our end and with Nikon customers in India. Our conscious engagements with our dealers and customers have resulted in a great year for Nikon India. India represents one of the fastest growing markets for Nikon and the Indian subsidiary will directly invest further to reinstate our commitments in the region.?

Nikon introduced a unique shop in shop retail concept of D-SLR and COOLPIX zones, revamped its marketing and distribution strategy to bring Nikon closer to its customers last year. This year followed with Nikon?s first TV commercial, COOLPIX spring collection launch with marketing spend of over `62 crore on promotions and POS branding. Nikon India is also seen going aggressive on outdoor front with the support of Nikon Corporation Tokyo, Japan by putting up wonderful Neon signages, which started with Mumbai and the latest one in Bangalore now.

The Nikon signage installed at MG Road, Bangalore is known for its premiumness and appeal and with an upcoming metro station the visibility of the brand shall increase many fold. As a part of Nikon?s marketing initiatives the company is looking to cover the other major cities as well in the near future.

On the retail front, Nikon has already spread its footprint with over 50 D-SLR and COOLPIX Zones with a target to take the count to 80 by March 2011. In addition, Nikon India has recently established its branch office in southern India in Bangalore. The office expands Nikon India?s ability to offer local sales and support services to its fast growing base of customers and prospects in the region. With this, Nikon?s official presence had extended to all four regions of the country ? North (Gurgaon), East (Kolkata), West (Mumbai) and South (Bangalore).

Registering a robust growth in India market share in the D-SLR and COOLPIX compact camera segment, Nikon aims to touch a market share of 50 % (from a current 45%) and 15% (from a current 13%) respectively in the two segments by 2010-2011. Last year, the company announced the launch of eight new COOLPIX cameras taking the complete range to 12 with a variety of 40 bright and energetic colors to suit color preferences of Nikon customers.