IT peripheral firm BenQ expects India business to grow 15-20% in 2020

IT peripheral firm BenQ expects around 15-20 per cent growth in India business this year on pick up in sales demand from home segment for monitors and high-definition projectors, according to a top official of the company.

According to BenQ India Managing Director Rajeev Singh, the company's institutional sales for flat screen wall and projectors have suffered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but its impact has been compensated with increase in sales of monitor and projectors by retail customers.

"In terms of percentage, we are definitely looking at a 15 to 20 per cent increase. We are expecting at least three times growth in our monitor business during this year as compared to last year, and we work on a calendar year basis," Singh told PTI.

He said because of work from home, learning and entertainment at home, the demand for company's business to consumer (B2C) products has increased, specifically for monitors.

Before COVID-19, two-thirds of BenQ's business came from sales of projectors and interactive flat panels and one-third of business was being contributed by monitors.

"Now the situation post-COVID has reversed. Now two-thirds of our total business is from monitors and one-third is from projectors and interactive flat panels because there's a shift from mainly B2B to B2C. We are seeing a net impact that is going to be positive," Singh said.

According to IDC, the company recorded 163 per cent year-on-year surge in sales of 27 inch monitor segment during April-June quarter in 2020.

Singh said most of the sales for the company are now coming from e-commerce platforms and it is ramping up manpower to handle digital sales.

"I think going forward, things will improve, but a major part of the buying has happened from e-commerce platforms. We have been very active in promoting our products from Amazon.

"Right now, we are planning in a big way for the Diwali sales, and to support this, we are making continuous investments to ramp up our capability in the e-commerce part of the business as well as for digital marketing," he said.

The company had freezed hiring March 1 onwards, but revoked it on September 1.

"We are again looking at expanding our teams. In terms of a percentage, I can tell you, we plan to add close to a 15 per cent additional manpower in the next six months," Singh said.