Samsung to export 'Indian' TVs to Europe

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 30. Samsung India today announced plans to export colour televisions manufactured in its plant here to Western Europe. The first shipment of over 40,000 CTVs comprising four 14 inch models will be dispatched in early August. ``Starting with modest exports of 60,000 CTVs this year, we are expecting our export volumes to grow to at least two lakh units next year,'' said the Samsung Indian Managing Director, Mr. K. S. Kim.

In the near future, Samsung expects India to become an export base for supplying CTVs to neighbouring countries and European markets. The company's India-based design centre set up in February this year will support the thrust towards exporting CTVs to neighbouring countries. The centre has been asked to evaluate the demand pattern in neighbouring countries and Samsung expects its ``highly flexible'' production line to cater to the slightly different export requirements of other nations.

Besides being flexible in changing the production pattern, the company's CTV plant at Noida is scheduled to be increased to one million sets per annum by next year. The present production capacity is 6.10 lakhs with the company targeting domestic sales of 5.50 lakh units this year (market share of 11 per cent) as compared to 4.10 lakhs (nine per cent) last year.

Mr. Kim was speaking to newspersons on the occasion of the launch of Samsung's ``Mettalica'' series of CTVs which were designed in India taking into account the Indian customers' needs and preferences such as more powerful sound and an on-screen display in five languages including Tamil, Bengali and Gujarati. Mr. Kim said the company also planned to aggressively push DVD players in the market. The company has two models in the market and today announced the launch of a third DVD player which has an in-built amplifier thus obviating the need for the customer to shop for its separately.

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Section  : Business
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