Samsung plans new brand rollout

Samsung, the Korean conglomerate, is considering new brand rollout in India under the umbrella Samsung brand as a part of its strategy to give a brand identity to its different business. The multiproduct Korean major has 9-10 sub brands in Korean market in different product categories.

Samsung Corporation, the Samsung outfit in IT, telecom, digital media, consumable and construction, kick started the sub branding initiative in India through the launch of a new sub brand Pleomax for digital media and IT consumable on Friday.

Rajiv Gupta, Country Manager (IT & Telecom) Samsung Corporation explained that Samsung is the brand with great value but under Samsung brand there are too many business areas like mobile phones, semiconductors, TV, shipbuilding, construction, digital consumable, IT etc. so the brand identity is very broad and wide.

"Samsung is brand with great brand equity. People are aware that Samsung is excellent but this one brand does not explain clearly how, why and how much good each business area or product group is. Therefore, it is the brand strategy of Samsung group to build individual brand category by category to give customers the specialised image of each product group," he said.

According to Gupta, under the corporate brand of Samsung, it will grow Pleomax brand to make it the powerful brand than any other brands in its category in the long run. He claimed that the success of Pleomax branding for IT peripherals and digital consumables in Korea has lured Samsung to introduce it in India.

"It is successfully launched in Europe and Korea market in the first half of this year and already the sales has grown geometrically in these areas. The sales of digital media consumable has been doubled in Korea following the introduction of Pleomax," added him. However, he refused to comment about the spending on brand promotion for Pleomax.

Stanley Kim, general manager, IT media and consumable division informed that the company is eyeing 25 per cent market share in digital storage media segment from the present level of 15 per cent following rebranding of the product.

Similarly, it is optimistic to capture 15 per cent market share in IT peripherals from single digit level. "We are confident to achieve this by the end of 2005," he said.