Sony India is targeting revenues of between Rs. 750 crore and Rs. 800 crore from the consumer notebook segment by March 2011 against an estimated revenue of Rs. 500 crore by March 2010, Sachin Thapar, Head, IT, gaming and mobile business said.
Talking to reporters after launching the Vaio X, ‘a size zero’ PC, he said the company planned to introduce new products including lower price-point products to enhance ‘the line-up.’ He said the company planned to become one of the top three companies in this segment moving up a notch from its fourth position now after HP, Dell and Innovo.
The personal computer market which had flattened in the wake of the economic downturn (with a decline in sales between November 2008 and March 2009) has now begun recovering and a 20 per cent growth was expected this fiscal. This is a conservative estimate and the actual growth rate may be 30 per cent.
Around nine lakh PCs are expected to be sold by March 2011 which is a lakh more over the March 2009 estimates when sales are projected at eight lakh units.
Market share
Sony India is targeting to capture a 20 per cent share of this market from 12 per cent now, Mr Thapar said. He said that the company was investing Rs. 15 crore towards promoting the new product. “Our strategy is to expand distribution channels as well as service centres and launch a marketing communication campaign through multiple media like online, print, TV and shopfront.”
The company, which imports its units from China and Japan would increase its presence to 200 cities by March 2010 from 150 cities now, he said, adding that the number of service centres would be doubled to 200.
Volume driver
He said at present the volume driver was the sub-Rs. 45,000 segment which contributes 60 per cent of the sales.
This might be increased to 65 per cent by 2010-11. He said for the notebook segment, the market share was expected to increase to nine per cent in fiscal 2010 from seven per cent now. It expects to sell 6,000 notebooks in this segment, he said.
