LG to grow three-fold in India

Eyes turnover of Rs 13,500cr in the next three yrs.

China is estimated to contribute nearly $7bn to the world-wide sales of $17bn. While the Korean market contributed $3.2 billion in 2003.

LG Electronics India Limited (LGEIL) will grow three-fold to Rs 13,500 crore in the next three years from its current turnover of Rs 4,500 crore, making it as big as the company's operations in its homeland Korea.

"India is the fastest growing market for our company, with sales increasing over 50 per cent. The growth has been faster even compared to China, although the volume of sales there is much higher. India's contribution to the company will go up from five per cent to 15 per cent in the next three years," said Young Chan Kim, executive vice-president, LG Inc.

The company top brass is expected to be in India in May to discuss the future strategy and investments, coinciding with LG India's seventh anniversary celebration.

Kim was in Delhi for LG's Asia strategy meet which also played host to the country heads of the company's Asian subsidiaries. "At the meet, we reviewed our long-term plans till 2010. We have set ourselves the goal of being the top consumer electronics company in Asia by 2007," said Kim.

According to Kim, the mobile handset business is likely to drive the growth in India. LG was a late entrant in the Indian GSM handset market when it launched its products in October last year. But it expects the new category to generate revenues of nearly Rs 700 crore by the end of 2004.

Kim said that globally new display devices like plasma and LCD TVs were finding acceptance very fast. "In 2003, the global market for these products was seven million units of which Asia accounted for one million. The growth in the category has been from a very low base," he added.

When asked about the competition from the recent JV between Chinese and French TV giants TCL and Thomson, Kim said that although the combine would be the largest TV manufacturers in the world, they lacked the wide range of high technology models.

"Their presence is primarily in the low cost, conventional TV segment. The world is fast moving to new technologies and they are fairly weak there," he said.