Philips to invest more in India

MUMBAI, AUG 22: Dutch corporate major Philips Consumer Electronics, aggressively expanding its colour TV business, has identified India a...

MUMBAI, AUG 22: Dutch corporate major Philips Consumer Electronics, aggressively expanding its colour TV business, has identified India as its key market for investment along with China and the United States. The company, set to expand its presence in India, supported by a $ 10 million advertising campaign, would be launching a slew of products to woo the Indian consumers.

At a news conference held in Hong Kong recently, Philips kicked off the marketing campaign by outlining a focus on fast-growing consumer electronic business and electronic-commerce. "We think India will be one of the biggest markets to grow in the next millennium,” Frans van Houten, managing director of Philips Consumer Electronics said.

The Amsterdam-based company makes no bones about its target: "The plan is to offer technologically better products at an affordable cost to the consumers," van Houten said. The new products to be launched by October this year are a 29-inch flat panel colour TV, personal computer monitors, mobile phonesand a range of audio products.

Story continues below this ad

Agreeing that India was neglected in the recent past by the Philips’ Amsterdam headquarters, van Houten said in the next few months Philips would concentrate to increase its market penetration in India especially in the CTV segment. Though Philips has a 30 per cent market share in the audio systems market, in the fastest growing CTV segment, it’s presence is negligible.

The reasons to chose India over rest of the world was obvious, says van Houten. “The Latin American economy is down, while far eastern countries are recovering and East European countries still have a long way to go… hence India, with its growing economy and a large consumer base, is the best choice for increased investment,” he said.

Saying that Philips now enjoys a double digit CTV market share in India, van Houten said its Indian subsidiary’s sales shot past its budget by over 13 per cent. “Our market share in India grew by 0.8 per cent to 10.3 per cent in the first quarter of 1999,” he said.

Ina major change of marketing strategy, Philips has also embarked on a brand building exercise by investing more on promotion of its brand name.Company’s marketing director, Aaron Boey said its brand name alone, excluding the company assets, has been evaluated at $ 5 billion by Inter Brand, an independent news magazine, tracking international brands.

Story continues below this ad

Boey said its rivals can’t offer the same performance range or reliability. "We designed our products for the highly demanding Asian customers from the beginning," said Boey. “We are investing over $ 80 million in the Asia-Pacific region to sell our technologically advanced products, making Philips one of the biggest advertisers in the region,” he said.