LG India eyes Rs 9,500 crore revenue this fiscal

LG Electronics India Private Limited, the Noida-based subsidiary of Korean chaebol LG, has launched a new range of notebooks based on the Sonoma platform from Intel, in the country today.

The company is also contemplating manufacturing its IT products in India in the near future. This apart, it is looking at increasing its revenue to Rs 9,500 crore in 2004-05 from Rs 6,500 crore in 2003-04.

The IT division of LG India is likely to contribute Rs 650 crore (10 per cent) to the total revenues this fiscal and the company is looking at increasing this number to Rs 1,100 crore in the next fiscal.

Sonoma encompasses the next generation range of the existing Intel Centrino processor range of notebooks. It uses the updated versions of Centrino components. The new range of products display high speed, power and come in an ultra-thin design.

Addressing a press conference, R Manikandan, general manager (sales and marketing "� PC and peripherals), LG Electronics India, said, "We are launching the new range of Sonoma notebooks the price of which range between Rs 95,000 and Rs 1,25,000."

"The laptop market in the country is expected to grow at a year-on-year rate of 100 per cent with the market for notebooks expected to be around 350,000 units in India at present," he added.

The express series of notebooks is equipped with ATI Mobility Radeon X600 graphics card which supports up to 128 MB of graphics memory and a PCI Express interface that provides four times faster graphic performance as compared to the existing models.

Speaking on the plans for manufacturing IT products in India, Manikandan said, "We have a full-fledged backward integration system wherein we import our products from Korea. We are, however, contemplating manufacturing IT products in India in the near future," he added. "We will also be launching new range of notebooks and desktop PCs soon," Manikandan said.

On the issue of high prices of LG products,he added that there have been efforts to get into the lower price segment also. Globally, LG is into various sectors like telecommunications, electronics, finance, services and chemicals. It has 300 subsidiaries worldwide with an employee-base of around 1,85,000 people.

The company's IT division is into PC monitors, optical storage devices, desktop PCs and notebook PCs. According to Manikandan, LG stands second in the PC monitor market, first in the optical storage devices segment and third in the desktop PCs category.