Japan's Olympus eyes break-even by 2016

Olympus, the Japanese imaging player, is aiming to break even in India’s competitive camera market by 2015-16, just four years after starting sales.

Kenichiro Mori (pictured), MD of Olympus Imaging India, conceded that Olympus, a late entrant, is finding India a huge challenge. “In order to spread awareness, we are looking at increasing our marketing spends. The plan is to spend 10% of our total net sales in India on marketing activities.”

Mori, however, declined to talk in terms of numbers and sales revenues. Globally, Olympus has cut its 2013 sales target by 11%.

In the next two years, the company plans to raise its market share in India from 3% to 10% in the compact and DSLR segments (where leader Nikon, with its 25-30% share in compacts and 55% share in DSLRs, is expecting to post Rs1,200 crore in revenue this fiscal).

So, Olympus is deepening its distribution to all big retail stores as well as smaller neighbourhood dealers. In addition, the company is eyeing the top slot in the mirror-less DSLR segment, and has launched eight new products across different segments.

Mori acknowledged that smartphone cameras are slowing the compact digital camera market growth; but the latter will survive and thrive, given that 30 lakh units are estimated to be sold in the Indian market, he said. Typically, Olympus cameras in this class sell in the range of Rs4,500-32,000.

Paradoxically, sales of DSLRs, which are high-end cameras, have been steadily increasing in India: so much so, the 2011 sales figure of 1.50 lakh units is expected to reach 4.25 lakh units by 2015.

“The slowdown can be witnessed in markets like Europe, America, China and Japan. But India is still a growing market for us as we are a late entrant here,” said Mori.

The imports-fed “growing market” could well morph into an overseas manufacturing-and-export hub for the Japanese company, if growth happens at a robust pace in India, he said.

@Nupursays