Canon sees Govt biz growing

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Canon is witnessing huge business opportunities in government projects. As the government of India has set aim for paperless governance in next five years and will be required to archive data in printed form, Canon is confident on increase in demand for print business.

The company has set its eye to meet Rs 850 crore revenue by this year and by 2010 it aims to touch revenue figure of Rs 1,000 crore.

“According to a survey, a human life needs minimum 750 print between his birth certificate to death certificate. Also, as there is no surety that a technology can break down at any time, the government needs to go for archiving, which in itself is a huge business opportunity," explained Sajeevan.

While Canon's laser printer business registered a growth of 160 percent and gained 31 percent share of the market, the company has witnessed 33 percent growth in scanner business from government segment which is especially purchased for archiving government documents.

“There are lots of new government projects coming up like e-literacy in Maharashtra and very active e-governance projects coming up in Gujarat which are going to push business opportunity for IT peripherals in western region. We see host of new business opportunity will come from governments Unique Identity Card program which will initially need huge amount of printing work to be done," he added.

IT peripheral business division of Canon India claims to have registered a growth of 49 percent, compared to the growth in first half (H1) of last year, and has clocked revenue of Rs 93 crore in first half of this year.

Canon India attributed this growth to opportunities that the company identified at the time of economic slowdown. “Industry grew by five per cent and we registered a growth of 49 per cent in this H1 compared last year H1. When everyone was cutting on their visibility cost, we went aggressive in the market,” said VP Sajeevan, Assistant Director, Consumer System Products, Canon India.