 "Bang & Olufsen")
A Danish high-end audio and now, video gadget manufacturer, B&O is known, along with rival Bowers & Wilkins, for housing some of the best speakers and amplifiers globally, according to acoustic experts. When not meeting the needs of professional sound artists and institutional buyers, the brand caters to the luxury home-owner. The cost of installation of a B&O home theatre is a minimum Rs 1 crore, running up to as high as Rs 5 crore, depending on the requirements. A recently-concluded installation was done for Rs 2.8 crore in Bengaluru.
Finding its way into homes and vacation houses of the elite, the company says B&O has around 10,000 customers in India, with purchases of more than Rs 50 lakh. The brand had to sort out its Indian partnership before expanding. In 2012, it had appointed the Ashish Chordia-led Shreyans Group as its master dealer, with plans to open 10 stores. While Shreyans had tie-ups with many luxury brands over the years such as Ferrari, Porsche and Ducati, it has since lost their custom. The partnership with B&O, too, did not last. It had, however, managed to install systems in the business-to-business segment such as in hotels.
But B&O's reach is set to increase with a new master dealer, BeoWorld, coming onboard. Gaganmeet Singh, managing director, BeoWorld, says, "We are opening the first store in New Delhi by January. It will be a 3,000-sq ft store in an upscale mall in south Delhi, and then there will be a bigger experience centre spread over 8,000-sq ft in Gurgaon, followed by stores in Mumbai and Bengaluru." The brand will also service other cities in the stores' catchment areas.
This is part of B&O's plan to ramp up its India operations since the last one year, after concentrating on growing the China market in the preceding years, according to company officials. The stores will be tailored in a way to provide the same experience as in those in Milan, Paris or Tokyo. Its Madison Avenue, New York store, for example, marries a sensory experience with product displays that also explains the brand's pointedly different designs.
B&O's high-end products such as TV and audio systems (with prices between Rs 3.5 lakh for speakers and Rs 50 lakh for TVs) will be showcased at its standalone stores. "Pricing is not an issue. Indian consumers are ready to pay for quality. The challenge is availability as the supply is limited since B&O does not play the volume game. Every product is tested and certified and comes with B&O's core intelligent technology integration, and is made-to-measure, customised according to the consumer's preference," says Singh. At present, B&O supplies about 20 units of its core products to India. The customisation takes two to three weeks, at no extra cost, of products imported from Denmark.
B&O is looking to spread its net wider not just through retail presence, but also with personal gadgets such as headphones. So, its B&O Play range that includes headphones, portable music players and speakers, will be retailed through multi-brand stores and on the relentlessly growing e-commerce portals. Online, its products are available from Rs 10,856 to Rs 31,000. Its latest B&O Play range, however, will start from Rs 10,000 upto 2.5 lakh. "We want to create a market for portable devices and want consumers to understand what B&O is, and gradually, the aspiration will be established," Singh says.
B&O was founded in 1925 in Struer, Denmark, by Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen. Its products are sold mainly by an extensive, independent retail network in more than 100 countries. Besides entertainment products for homes, B&O manufactures high-performance sound systems for luxury cars.
At present, hotel chains like the Taj Group, Leela, ITC and Le Meridien have B&O installed in their top-end suites, says Singh. Of personal gadgets, he says, "In the coming years, we may also look at tapping the duty-free sales route at airports for the portable products." The company is ready to spend 10 per cent of its revenue on brand building in India.
What makes B&O intelligent
- B&O claims to enable a sound system that knows what a user likes to listen to as she steps into her home or gets into her car. It understands her mood, intelligently
- Its BeoLiving integrates control of entertainment sources with control of ambient light and curtains
- BeoLink is the inherent ability of its equipment to talk to each other, allowing users to enjoy audio anywhere in one's home across televisions, audio equipment, and speakers
