LG Electronics India plans IPO

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, AUG. 23. LG Electronics India Ltd. (LGEIL) has a slew of plans for the near future. The company has plans to divest part of its stake to the Indian public.

The 100 per cent subsidiary of the South Korean consumer electronics and home appliances major is planning to divest about 25 per cent of the stake some time next year. In the first it has invested Rs. 500 crores in facilities at NOIDA near New Delhi with a capacity to manufacture seven lakh CTVs, four lakh refrigerators, two lakh washing machines, one lakh air conditioners and five lakh microwave ovens annually.

The company, which hopes to achieve a Rs. 200-crore turnover in its IT business this year, is embarking on a major initiative to manufacture some of its IT products like monitors here, the Managing Director, Mr. K. R. Kim, said.

Addressing presspersons here today, Mr. Kim said the company had started focussing on IT and e-commerce. IT would be its mainstay in future, according to him, going by the business trend in India. It is planning to manufacture and assemble its PC monitors at an investment of Rs. 20 crores.

It has initiated a feasibility study to weigh the option depending on the government policies. It has sought a reduction of excise duties to 10 or 12 per cent from the present 16 per cent. It targets to sell six lakh units next year.

It will add DVD ROM and CD ROM Players soon. Other products such as PC Notebook and 17'' Faltron Monitors will also be launched. It will invest about $10 million in its PC monitor business. It hopes to corner 30 per cent market share next year.

Mr. Ajay Kapila, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, said LG had launched its on-line trade initiative with its lgezbuy. The two new portals - lgedealernet.com and lgesource.com - launched today would deal with supply and demand chains. By June next the entire dealer community will be on the Net. Even on the consumer front, LG hopes to do a major chunk of the business on-line.

LG, which launched today four new models of PC monitors, a digital eye camera and an LCD projector, plans to invest $100 millions till 2005 besides another $10 million will be spent on digital product development.

The company has invested Rs. 4 crores for the portals. LG is in talks with banks for on-line payment options for its business.

LG which has set up LG Software Centre in Bangalore will set up an in house R&D and HRD Centre in India.

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Section  : Business
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