Canon sets big sales growth target

Canon India Pvt Ltd (CIPL), a 100 per cent subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pte Ltd, which posted 15 per cent growth in sales at Rs 230 crore in the last calendar year from Rs 202 crore in 2002, is aiming at Rs 700 crore sales by 2007.

Canon, which has a software development centre in Delhi (one of six in the world), has also decided to strengthen research & development (R&D) activities.

The company will be investing 15 per cent of its turnover during the current year in R&D.

"After selling over 1,50,000 digital imaging products in India, we now have outlined an aggressive roadmap to emerge as India's No. 1 digital imaging company. We are aiming at Rs 700 crore sales by 2007 and 30 per cent market share by 2005 in all major product categories in India," said Alan Grant, president and CEO of Canon India here on Wednesday.

"With the help of developments throughout last year "" we launched 44 digital imaging products here, which is a record in the industry, and ran marketing campaigns worth $1.2 million. We are now braced to woo the Indian consumers with a comprehensive portfolio," Grant added.

For this, the company plans to focus mainly on the growing business of consumables and digital camera segments.

"We expect the consumables business to grow by at least 50 per cent during the current year while the digital camera business is expected to grow (for Canon) by 400 per cent year-on-year. The industry is growing by 100 per cent in India. To tap the immense potential in the digicam segment, we will be launching newer models in India alongwith new photo printers and also ink which will be a complete portfolio of solution to be offered to our Indian consumers," Grant said.

Canon, which at present has been importing its product range from Singapore, has no immediate plan to set up manufacturing unit in India.

"Instead, we are working on strengthening our software development centre in Delhi. It was set up during 1998 with an investment of $2 million. It now serves our global market and is on a par with our five other SDCs worldwide. We are raising the manpower at this centre form 47 to 65 this year. We have also decided to invest 15 per cent of our turnover in R&D, the hub of which will be the Delhi unit," Grant said.

The five other development centres of Canon are located in the US, UK, Australia, France and Beijing.

The high-tech digital technology lab in Delhi houses hardware to simulate network environment scenarios and is also used to trouble-shoot potential stress points in networking application situations.