Cannon cuts camera prices ahead of festive season

Photographic and digital imaging solutions provider Canon India on Wednesday said it expects sales of around Rs. 500 crore during the upcoming festive season, mainly to be driven by its camera business.

The company that is looking for a 60 percent growth in revenues in the camera business in the last quarter of the ongoing calendar year compared to same period last year has also reduced the prices of its cameras ranging between Rs. 400 and Rs. 11,000 to woo customers.

"We are expecting revenues of around Rs. 500 crore for the festival season. As it is also our fourth quarter, we are expecting a 60 percent growth in revenues in the camera business from the same quarter last year," Canon India Pvt Ltd Senior Vice President Alok Bharadwaj told PTI here on Wednesday.

The camera business alone will contribute Rs. 300 crore, he added.

"Period from October to December contributes nearly 40 percent of our yearly sales. The company is looking at revenues of Rs. 2,000 crore for the current year from Rs. 1,525 crore revenues it had posted previous year," Bharadwaj said.

Commenting on the price cut, he said, in the digital compact cameras, the reduction in prices will range from Rs. 500 to Rs. 4,000, while in the the digital SLRs it will be between Rs. 4,000 and Rs. 11,000.

The company has been able to increase market share of its digital compact camera business from 15 percent to 25 percent this year despite the fact that market for the segment remained flat for the year, he added.

The company's market share in the digital SLR segment has also grown to to 48 percent this year from 40 percent last year.

In order to keep the growth momentum, Canon India plans to take increase its exclusive brand retail stores 'Canon Image Square' to 300 by the end of 2014 from 80 at present.

"We will be taking the numbers of our Canon Image Square stores to 300 by end of 2014. The company will invest nearly Rs. 25 lakh per store," Bharadwaj said.

The company expects the existing stores to contribute Rs. 175 crore this year but when all the 300 stores would be opened they are expected to contribute around Rs. 1,000 crore to its overall sales, he added.

The firm sells a range of products in India, including photocopiers, fax-machines, printers, scanners, digital cameras, camcorders and multimedia projectors.

Canon India Pvt Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canon Singapore Pte Ltd , a world leader in imaging technologies. Canon today has offices spread across 10 cities in the country with an employee strength of over 1,100 people.