The adoption of Smart TVs has dramatically increased due to the array of great features and unlimited entertainment options. However, the TV manufactures are working on bringing more innovative and customer-friendly features to offer unmatched experience. In line to know more about the Smart TV market in India, Rajeev Ranjan, Editor, Digital Terminal spoke to Avneet Singh Marwah, Director and CEO of Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd, a Kodak brand licensee. Avneet Singh Marwah elaborated upon all the aspects and gave deep insights about the Indian Smart TV market. Read below the excerpts:
Rajeev: What do you think about the current scenario of the Indian smart TV market? How is the market picking up growth momentum in 2021?
Avneet Singh: With an increase in panel pricing, there has been a major shift in the market. This has slowed down the demand of televisions. Currently, the price for a 32-inch has gone up by 350%. Therefore, there is a shift towards the sale of larger screens.
Rajeev: How do you look at the competition from brands like OnePlus, Realme and Mi? What helps you to achieve sustainable growth despite tough competition in the market?
Avneet Singh: The brands mentioned above, all come from the phone ecosystem and are all non-Indian manufacturing brands. We are one of the few Indian manufacturing brands that are giving tough competition to the existing names mentioned above. I think, last year has been good as the consumer sentiments were running high toward non- Chinese brands. We became the first Indian brand to get a Google android license for our televisions. This year we will be launching TVs with new innovative technologies, customized especially for the Indian customers.
Rajeev: PM Modi introduced the Vocal for Local initiative to promote local manufacturing so what steps are you taking to support this initiative? Please tell me about your existing and upcoming production facilities within India
Avneet Singh: For the last 30 years, we (SPPL) are manufacturing TVs in India. We have a complete backward integrated system. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a blessing in disguise for the Indian manufacturing industry. It taught us to be more dependable on our very own home-grown raw materials. But when it comes to TVs, there is no alternative other than China to manufacture panels because of which 70-80% of the cost comes from there. Currently, we are trying to achieve more value editions in India. Kodak TV is investing more than 300cr in the next 3 years. We are setting up a new manufacturing plant with the help of the UP government and will be increasing our capacity to over a million units.
Rajeev: What are your outreach and expansion plans for tier II and III cities? Please shed some light on your distribution strategies for CY 2021 and beyond to strengthen your presence across India.
Avneet Singh: In the last one-year, despite a spike in online, we have established an effective offline network as well. We have more than 10,000 billing counters offline. In the last 6 months, we have introduced TVs in 16 different odd states, and we are working on all major LFRs. In the next 6 months, 90% LFRs will be covered by Kodak as the offline market has realized that there is a vacuum for an Indian budget manufacturing brand with the kind of technology we are offering. We are delivering in both tier 2 and tier 3 cities. To name a few cites where our market is increasing at a rapid phase, are Jalgaon, Nagpur, Agra, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Ludhiana, Chattarpur, Indore Bikaner, Ranchi, Hugli, Bhatinda, and Ayodhya. These are some of the cities where we've seen Kodak grow significantly. By end of this year, we will be able to sell in more than 3000 cities and towns in India.
Rajeev: Which new products we can see this year from brand Kodak? How do you harness the next-gen technologies to develop customer-centric TVs?
Avneet Singh: One of the biggest disruptions for TV industry has been AI, we are working with an android team to streamline more Indian languages in Google assistant. I feel the new U.I will be a voice command as the biggest screen of your home will be now connected to your smart home devices. We will now be developing new televisions keeping work from home in mind. Apart from the content, the TVs will be business-tool friendly as well. The main concept is that our customers can work in the daytime and in the evening, our customer can enjoy their favourite OTT content.
