“We had a great 2010, and have doubled our revenues and numbers from the Indian market according to all major research reports,” said N Siva Kumar, General Manager, Toshiba India.
Sivakumar attributes the turnaround to the new range of emerging market specific models that Toshiba introduced since Q1 2010. “We had revamped our product portfolio, based on feedback of our channel partners and customers, and over last year a number of models were released which are not carried in our catalogues for the matured economies,” he said.
According to Gartner India’s reports for Q3 2010, Toshiba sold close to 65,000 notebooks and enjoyed approximately 7.5% of the notebook market. In June 2010, the vendor announced that it would be spending close to $10 million in developing the Toshiba brand in India and had signed on cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar as a brand ambassador.
Partners across the country had reported that Toshiba pricing has been very aggressive of late, and some of the SKUs were cheaper than other popular MNC brands. “Pricing is not the way we hope to gain market share. This year you would see more models that are positioned specifically for a maket like India. No doubt, they would be priced aggressively, but they would continue to be feature rich,” added Kumar.
He said that Toshiba would continue growing the shopToshiba exclusive stores across the county. “Except for Mumbai and to some extent Bangalore, Large Format Retailers are not really a threat for exclusive stores. We will continue investing our resources in developing our retail channels,” he added.
While not divulging exact targets, Kumar said that Toshiba will grow its numbers more faster than the industry in 2011. ”We have our long term goals of being one among the top three notebook brands in the country. Our plans are clear! Our partner ecosystem has evolved across the country, and we will soon be there.”
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