Eveready Industries India Ltd, the Rs 642-crore flagship of the Williamson Magor group, is targeting a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore in the current fiscal. It is also aiming for a turnover of Rs 2,500 crore in five years' time.
This was stated by Aniruddha Roy, director of the company at the launch of the super heavy duty zinc chloride battery yesterday.
Later talking to the reporters, Roy said the company is mulling over the idea of going into agro-based business like fruit processing. However, the thrust will be on battery and tea. With a market share of 44 per cent in battery, the company is aiming for a 50 per cent market share in battery in 1998-99.
R S Jhawar said that the company has planned new launches in the tea segment and enhancement of capacity and technology is on the cards.
However, Eveready will go great guns on media campaigning and will almost treble its ad spend in the current year. Eveready has chalked out spectacular publicity campaigns particularly for its new product and its overall battery segment. 'Future is here' - is the new ad campaign of the company. Packed in an attractive blister card of two, the new battery is priced at Rs 15.
Competing with Nippo, Novino, Duracell and BPL, the company has taken up a powerful marketing strategy with a strong focus on research. Launching its product before the dealers, Eveready demonstrated some of its campaigns showing its new heavy duty battery going strong and Novino lying in one corner.
The introduction of advanced battery-operated appliances has resulted in rapid transformation of the market. As the need for high performance batteries is increasing rapidly, the company has added a new one in the range of heavy duty batteries.
This will meet the requirement of the new generation gadgets and also the high-drain equipment like personal stereos, cameras, toys and pagers.
Eveready has sourced electrolytic manganese dioxide from Japan, which is the key element in a battery, said Roop Kumar, who has developed this heavy duty battery. The company has a technological tie-up with Eveready Battery Company of USA, the world leader in battery.
Addressing the gathering, S Dasgupta, chief of battery marketing, said that the demand for battery has registered a growth of 10 per cent per annum after 1993, prior to which it was hovering around 4-5 per cent. The AA battery size accounts for a larger market share.
With 10 plants, 14 branches and 44 depots, the company services 5,00,000 retailers directly and 15,00,000 retailers indirectly.
