LG steps on the pedal; commits $250 m

Launches 71-inch plasma TV for the price of a Mercedes

LG Electronics India Limited (LGEIL), which has a sizeable chunk of the Indian consumer electronics market, is relentlessly pushing forward with aggresive investments and marketing plans.

The company is looking at investing around $50 million every year to keep up the pressure against the rivals.

In addition to this, the company is aggresively ramping up its manufacturing activities out of India for a range of products in the white goods, mobile phones and computer peripherals.

Said K R Kim, MD, LGEIL: "We have achieved a turnover of Rs 6,500 crore in 2004 and our aim is to be a $10 billion company by 2010. For this, we plan an investment of $250 million over the next five years here."

In addition to the regular white goods manufacturing, "our mobile phone manufacturing unit is on stream at Pune and currently we are producing 1.5 million handsets here. Our plan is to produce 20 million handsets per year by 2010 from this facility." He added that 70 per cent of this production will be for the Indian market and the rest will be exported.

LG India has also announced the launch of a range of high-end television sets which at the higher end costs a little more than a Merc at Rs 30 lakhs. It is a 71-inch plasma TV, equipped with a seamless single module plasma screen.

"This TV is equipped with advanced technology to deliver unmatched visual brilliance through its high resolution screen format of densely packed pixels," Kim said. Besides this, the company has announced smaller screen size plasma TVs besides a 15-inch wireless LCD TV.

Added Kim: "The sheer size and potential of the Indian consumer electronics market has prompted us to introduce the best possible products in India from our global portfolio. We are a Group have tremendous expectations from the Indian market and foresee it as a country to reckon with in the years to come."