Sharp enters Indian market

NEW DELHI: The Japanese conglomerate Sharp has entered the Indian market with

a host of office automation products including fax machines, photocopiers and

notebooks. It has formed a 74:26 joint venture, Sharp Business Systems (India)

Ltd., with Larsen & Toubro Ltd. (L&T). In the seven-member board of

directors of the joint venture, Sharp will have five representatives and L&T

two.

For the last one year, the electronic office equipment division of L&T

was marketing Sharp products in the country. With the setting up of the joint

venture, this division has been merged with the new company.

In all, the company is looking at a turnover of Rs 70 crore to Rs 80 crore in

the first year of operation. Currently, Sharp India is operating through a

strong network of 100 resellers. It hopes to increase its number of resellers

sharply during the course of this year.

To start with, seven models of fax machines have been introduced in the

market, with prices ranging from Rs 11,000 to Rs 25,000. The company, which

already claims to have captured a 15 per cent market share, hopes to increase it

to 20 per cent this year through the launch of multi-function faxes shortly.

In contrast to just seven models of fax machines, about 15 models of Sharp's

photocopiers have been made available in the market. In addition, a range of

color copiers will be launched next month. In the notebooks segment, where it

has just two models, Sharp claims that it is not looking at addressing the mass

market. Rather, the stress is basically on the high-end with all the notebook

models being of slimline/ultralite variety priced around Rs 1.8 lakh. Overall,

Sharp hopes to sell 500 to 600 notebooks this year.

A couple of months down the line, Sharp plans to introduce inkjet printers,

laser printers and LCD monitors. However, it plans to focus more on

multi-function devices like scanner-cum-printer-cum-fax-cum-phone.