Sanyo-BPL, Reliance Retail in talks for OEM deal

Sanyo-BPL, the 50:50 JV between Sanyo and BPL, has initiated talks with the retail venture of Reliance Industries. The company, launched early this year, has managed to grab a 4% marketshare in the colour television segment in this period. It is looking at growing this to 7% by March 2007. Close to 10 million units of CTVs are expected to be sold during the present fiscal.

Kicking off the festive season's marketing push, Keiji Oshima, president & COO of Sanyo BPL, said: "We have already achieved a 4% marketshare in the CTV segment and expect this to reach the 7% mark during the upcoming festival season. We are presently close to setting up 6,000 outlets in the country and we intend to spread this to 12,000 by the year-end."

The company has also initiated discussions with retail venture of Reliance to be an OEM partner. "Sanyo is the OEM partner for Wal-Mart on a global scale and we have the expertise to be present in this kind of market. We are negotiating various options with Reliance," he added.

Sanyo-BPL, to add muscle to its product range is looking at pushing up the volume of Sanyo's home appliances business in the near future. "Our dual-brand strategy of promoting BPL and Sanyo brands in the mass and niche segment for the CTVs is working out. Sanyo India will bring in a whole lot of other appliances into India in the near future and we will look at volume sales for this business," he noted.