"From now we will focus on Digital Imaging Entertainment, which truly articulates Canon's belief in putting a human face on technology and since TV penetration base is much more than the 14 million PC penetration in India, enabling connectivity of digital imaging products with TV is a logical extension," Alan Grant, president and CEO of Canon India said.
The company will be spending Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) towards establishing the DIE strategy through mass media advertising campaigns.
The company also launched 28 products including DV camcorders, digital cameras, TV printer, portable photo printer and home cinema projectors amongst others.
This strategy shift for Canon is in line with it calling 2005 as the "Year of expansion". "In 2004, our sales turnover was Rs 264 crore (Rs 2.64 billion). This year we will close the year at Rs 330 crore (Rs 3.3 billion), a 25 per cent growth in revenues across product categories over last year and we expect a 10 per cent contribution coming from the digital product category," Alok Bhardwaj, vice president, Canon India said.
The company will also be expanding its retail initiatives in three spaces - IT, Photo, and audio-visual. The IT retail model is called Canon Retail station currently 21 in operations. The company will add 9 more this year.
Canon Digiclik Zones, the photo retail outlets will be expanded across the B & C towns and the company will add 22 more stores to take its tally to 30 this year.
he company will also expand its Home Cinema Centres by adding 11 more in 2005. Currently there are seven such centres across India.
"About 40 per cent of Canon's business comes from the top eight towns while the rest of the India contributes the remaining 60 per cent. Hence we will expand our retail initiatives in the small towns," Bhardwaj said.
The company is also looking to start its operations in Bhutan. "By June, we will be directly supplying our products from India into Bhutan. It is a growing market for us and we expect it to do well for us," Grant said.
The seven states of the north-east and West Bengal together contributes about 20 per cent to Canon in the digital camera segment.
"The Bhutan market, though small in size, will none the less be very important for us," Grant added.
Canon India is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Canon Singapore and in 2004, it launched 51 new digital imaging products. This year, the company will launch 50 new products in India out of which 28 were launched on Tuesday.
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