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| Edited By: Shailaja Sharma |Source: DNA |Updated: Mar 30, 2018, 02:02 AM IST
Nikon India, the wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese imaging products company Nikon Corporation, is aiming to double its market share to 13% in the compact camera segment by this fiscal end, Hidehiko Tanaka, managing director, Nikon India, told
DNA Money.
It also plans to increase its share in digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras from 37% last year to 45% in this fiscal. “This year we are aiming to sell 17, 000 units and achieving 45% of share in overall DSLR sales,” Tanaka said.
The company on Monday launched Nikon DS3, a high-end professional DSLR camera that is priced close to Rs 3 lakh. While the company may not sell huge units of the model, creating awareness is top priority, Tanaka said.
Nikon India has been operating since May 2007, but still contributes less than 1% to parent company’s business, spending more than it makes out of selling cameras and accessories. And this can be attributed to the low penetration level of cameras in the country vis-a-vis US, Japan and China.
But the company is hopeful to reverse the trend over couple of years. “Where about 110 million of cameras were sold worldwide last year, India has done only 1 million units. This difference is unreasonable. But our aim is to create demand and India has potential. Within 5 years, the demand here should be 7-8 times more,” Tanaka said.
The company has altered its distribution strategy by replacing national distributors by regional ones. “A national distributor will help you reach the tier 1 cities well, but we wanted to penetrate the country further. We currently have 22 local distributors and by March 2010, we are looking at having a total of 28 distributors,” Tanaka said.
Nikon India is putting a thrust on shop-in-shop experience zones at multi-brand retail outlets and dealer stores, where consumers can get a hands-on experience of the product.
The company has so far created 14 such zones across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Delhi and plans to open a total of 100 such zones by March 2010 in tier 1 and tier 2 cities.
