Sanyo BPL, a 50-50 JV between Sanyo Electric Company of Japan and BPL, is aiming to reclaim lost ground in the Indian colour TV market. In the next couple of years, the company plans to become a market leader in the growing slim TV segment."In the next couple of years slim TV sales will touch 30-40% of the entire TV segment as the price gap between conventional and slim models has progressively come down," V G Rajagopalan, VP-marketing of Sanyo BPL, said here today. As part of the renewed plans, BPL Sanyo has launched two slim TV models and plans to add six more models by the end of the current financial year, Rajagopalan said. Slim TVs are brought out by the traditional picture TV manufacturers in Japan to ensure retention of market share in the face of competition from LCD and Plasma technologies. The company has embarked on a marketing campaign to achieve an overall marketshare of upto 16% from its present share of 5%. While the JV company will deal only in colour TVs, Sanyo will market other electronic durables such as refrigerators, ACs and washing machines through its wholly-owned Indian subsidiary, Sanyo India, using the JV's trade channels, Keiji Oshima, president & COO of Sanyo BPL, said.Sanyo is also looking at a $100 million turnover in the Indian commercial segment over the next three years.The company is still hopeful of winning a contract from the Tamil Nadu government under the free colour TV scheme even though it had failed to make it in the first phase.
